Thursday, March 28, 2024

News Corp. Promoted Piracy, According to Aussie Report

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According to a report in the Australian Financial News, News Corp–which owns Fox News and the New York Post here in America–had a secret division that promoted piracy. I don’t mean the kind from big ships, with eye patched ghouls yelling, “Yar!” The paper says: “A secret unit within Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation promoted a wave of high-tech piracy in Australia that damaged Austar, Optus and Foxtel at a time when News was moving to take control of the Australian pay TV industry. The piracy cost the Australian pay TV companies up to $50 million a year and helped cripple the finances of Austar, which Foxtel is now in the process of acquiring. A four-year investigation by The Australian Financial Review has revealed a global trail of corporate dirty tricks directed against competitors by a secretive group of former policemen and intelligence officers within News Corp known as Operational Security.’

There are 14,000 emails reprinted on the site as corroborating evidence.

What happened to News Corp’s “zero tolerance policy” for piracy?

Meantime, James Murdoch has resigned from everything to do with his father’s company in the UK. And 20th Century Fox has pulled all the marketing for a summer movie called “Neighborhood Watch,” as I’ve reported on Forbes.com

Read more: http://afr.com/p/business/marketing_media/pay_tv_piracy_hits_news_OV8K5fhBeGawgosSzi52MM

Roger Friedman
Roger Friedmanhttps://www.showbiz411.com
Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News, where he created the Fox411 column. His movie reviews are carried by Rotten Tomatoes, and he is a member of both the movie and TV branches of the Critics Choice Awards. His articles have appeared in dozens of publications over the years including New York Magazine, where he wrote the Intelligencer column in the mid 90s and covered the OJ Simpson trial, and Fox News (when it wasn't so crazy) where he covered Michael Jackson. He is also the writer and co-producer of "Only the Strong Survive," a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals, directed by DA Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus.
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