Unfree at last: the sequel

Monday, October 12, 2009

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Libby Purves of The Times can sound a touch head girlish on the radio, and R4's Midweek is knee-jerk switch off for me... But as a columnist she is often bang on the money. Today, in an elegant riposte to the Wolffs, Shirkys, Huffingtons, Andersons and other Sultans of Free, she explains why the Age of Free must come to an abrupt end. Key paragraphs below, but read it all...

It’s been fun: like a jammed fruit machine spewing free tokens or a whisky-galore shipwreck. But it’s got to stop. Content — whether music, films, pictures, news or prose — can’t be free and flourish. The music and movie industries are fighting: journalism, after the ego trip of gaining millions of online readers, is following. It has to. There is no alternative.

The labourer is worthy of his hire, time is money, pay peanuts and you get monkeys. Pay nothing and you get dumb (or worse, venal) monkeys. Nothing costs nothing. And to do a straightforward deal is better than to endure an oblique and more sinister levy: the selling of your attention to hidden persuaders.

Posted by James Silver - On Monday, October 12, 2009

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