Outspoken News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch has launched a renewed attack on Google, calling it the “piracy leader” of the internet and accusing it apposing SOPA as it makes money off adverts shown around illegal content. Murdoch turned to Twitter for his rant, seemingly triggered by the Obama Administration’s comments this weekend that it had concerns over the controls implicit in the Stop Online Piracy Act.
“Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery” Murdoch fumed, before illustrating his complaint with Google by searching for movie Mission Impossible. “Wow, several sites offering free links” he concluded, “I rest my case.”
Murdoch’s SOPA-supporting tirade was derailed somewhat by fellow tweeters commenting on his stance, and complaining about theater prices. “Agree about cinema prices which out [sic] of our control” Murdoch conceded, “but even more offensive are prices for popcorn and sodas.”
Google didn’t comment on the cost of cinema snacks, but did counter Murdoch’s argument about its attitude toward illegal content. “This is just nonsense” a spokesperson for the search giant said. “Last year we took down 5 million infringing web pages from our search results and invested more than $60 million in the fight against bad ads … Like many other tech companies, we believe that there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking US companies to censor the Internet.”
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