In defense of Sam Zell

All the smart internet commentators have mocked Sam Zell, the Chicago estate developer who's buying the Tribune newspaper group. You'll remember that the 65-year-old wheeler-dealer — who knows little about print, let alone the internet — wondered in a recent speech what Google would do if newspapers blocked the search engine. "If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?" Cue cackles. Ha: the doddery dinosaur doesn't even know Google's news search engine is pro bono. But could the new newspaper mogul be savvier than he looks?

Search engines rely on newspaper articles for more than just their news sites. And, just because they haven't paid for content in the past, doesn't mean that will always be the case.

Take TV and movie clips: the conventional wisdom, a couple of years ago, was that established media giants such as Viacom should be grateful for the promotion of their programming on new video sharing services such as Youtube. Google has, since buying Youtube, agreed to share revenue with companies such as CBS; and will probably have to make further concessions to settle the $1bn suit that Viacom has launched against it.

There's no real reason why newspaper content should be that different. What if a collection of newspaper groups got together, a little like NBC and News Corporation have combined in video, and negotiated terms with the more compliant internet companies such as Yahoo? Yahoo agrees a larger revenue share for hosted newspaper articles; the print groups block Google's search engine in return. Unless Mountain View agrees to the same terms. It's not that preposterous once you think about it.

In fact, Google has already come to terms with the AFP wire service, and two Belgian newspaper groups. Those were small cases; imagine a lawsuit as dramatic, and traumatic, as Viacom's against Google. Sam Zell may be an internet newbie; he may be a newspaper newbie. But he's not stupid. And his instinct, that the newspapers have a little more power over Google than they imagine, could well be the right one.

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