It’s a classic story of old and new butting their heads against each other. Rupert Murdoch wants to make readers pay for some of their online content, while Google want to make it freely available.

The twist here lies in trying to decide who has the power. Murdoch could simply forbid Google to index his content, but I doubt he’d even consider it. And Google could exclude all of Murdoch’s content, but that wouldn’t be in the interests of their users.

The next few months or years might shape the future of online news, and it’s clear that Murdoch is serious about stamping his feet. Only yesterday, he accused online aggregators such as Google News as “theft of content“. And Google have already pointed out that paid content might not “do as well” as free options.

This is a battle between the new and the old. But it’s also a battle of ownership.

Google’s SideWiki has demonstrated that Google are blurring the lines over not only who owns a website’s content, but how it may be presented.

Maybe there is no such thing as a free news story.