Media execs see future for paid content

June 23, 2009 Media and entertainment industry executives said here Tuesday that consumers will be willing to pay for popular digital content as more sector companies explore new online pay models. Les Hinton, CEO of News Corp.'s Dow Jones & Co. and publisher of the Wall Street Journal, said newspaper firms' mistake was to give content away for free on the Web for too long, which allowed Google to become a kind of digital vampire. Industry observers have argued that as more media companies start to charge for digital content, a common payment system is needed to make the pay process smooth and easy.

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