Rupert Murdoch has come out against Google. Yes. That Rupert Murdoch.
This is a man who used technology to destroy jobs in order to increase profits. He dragged the British print media into the gutter in order to pay off the loans he used to build his company. He sneered at any thought of public service in journalism.
Now he's getting support from more liberal quarters. It's a strange argument though.
First Google's criticised for aggregating information on Google News. Copyright theft! Then it's criticised for taking down content from YouTube after the copyright holders demanded money for it. Denying exposure to copyright holders!
That's not to say Google is a benificent force for good. It's a listed company. Like all listed companies the primary aim of its founding documents is to make profits for shareholders. That's what it's for. And that means its business decisions will tend towards monopoly.
But in terms of the debate about defending the traditional content producers - the newspapers who are touting themselves as the guardians of democracy - John Naughton has a good point.
"I’m [...] all in favour of newspapers that perform that noble function. The only problem is that 95% of them haven’t performed it for decades, if ever. Mostly they operated by printing as much crap as could fit between the advertisements. When Craigslist took away the ads they were left with only the crap — for which, oddly enough, customers are reluctant to pay."
Which brings us right back to Mr Murdoch.