Niles: Murdoch thinks he can screw Google. Think again.

Bob Niles is taking Microsoft and News Corp. to task for trying to restrict access to content. Their agreement, he says, is oh so 20th century — when you could get away with creating content and then parceling it out.

Not any more:

But, today, it (the deal) illustrates just the latest example of backward-thinking by legacy media executives who’ve been left lost and clueless by the Internet revolution.

Niles is more than a little gleeful about this wrong-headed move because he detests “the Fox News’ cynical Republican-propaganda-masquerading-as-news” stuff that News Corp. produces.

But he also makes the point:

The Internet is killing one legacy media business model, however, and that’s the supply-side model based on creating value by restricting access to content. That’s the model upon which the News Corp.-Microsoft deal is based. While it might have worked in a pre-Web, channel-driven world, the public simply has spun too many ways around content-control deals to make this one worth Microsoft’s time or investment.

Can’t say as I disagree with much that Niles had to say.