Rupert Murdoch renews attacks on Google

News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch has renewed his attacks on Google for what he describes as the theft of news content.

Murdoch told attendees at a National Press Club event at George Washington University that newspapers should charge for content, and that the industry should use copyright laws to stop content being used for free by search engines, according to a report in The Guardian.

"We are going to stop people like Google or Microsoft or whoever from taking stories for nothing. There is a law of copyright and they recognise it. They take [news content] for nothing. They have got this very clever business model, " Murdoch is reported as saying.

Google has countered, however, suggesting that publishers put content on the web "because they want it to be found".

"Google is a tremendous source of promotion for news organisations, sending them about 100,000 clicks every minute. So very few choose not to include their material in Google's index," said a spokesperson.

"But the publisher is in control. If they ask us not to include their content, we won't. We work closely with the newspaper industry to help find long-term and sustainable models for making money from news."

Murdoch has been trying to develop a paid-for content plan that critics believe will be impossible to implement because consumers are used to free news content.

Google made concessionary moves in December by changing the way content is searched to prevent users bypassing paid firewalls via Google News, but the move failed to appease Murdoch.

News Corp hired former AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller in March to work alongside Murdoch's son James to create an online pay model for all News Corp titles and negotiate a deal with Google.

Murdoch then announced the introduction of pay-walls for The Times and The Sunday Times to create a revenue stream for online content.