Google: No money for news, not guilty on content theft

Google CEO Eric Schmidt believes publishers of general news would find it hard to charge online because too much free content is available. Schmidt said he could, however, imagine niche providers of content such as business news succeeding in this area.

Schmidt was responding to Rupert Murdoch's stated intent to start charging for news content online. “In general these models have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity,” said Scmidt.