It must be because they readily recognise that they can’t characterise anyone as ‘against paying for copies’ because that is an evidently reasonable position. However, someone against paying journalists for their labour on principle is a tantamount to slave driver (a position you’d expect the likes of Murdoch to sympathise with – free labour=more profit).

Murdoch’s problem is that he profits from selling copy (aka content) at monopoly protected prices – not journalism. For him journalism is an inconvenient overhead that must be borne in order to sell copies.

Journalists sell journalism, usually to newspapers. However, the newspaper producer being unable to sell copies is doomed, so journalists are going to have to look for new customers. The only customers left are those formerly known as newspaper purchasers, i.e. people interested in receiving good journalism.

And that’s what’s left: journalists and their readers. The readers’ money for the journalist’s journalism (not the derogatory ‘content’ used to fill paper containers with). This is a direct transaction. There are no copies, no newspapers, no Murdochs, because there is no market for copies. It’s just a simple exchange of journalism and money.

So the likes of Pernille have got the wrong end of the stick. The future is bright for those paying journalists for journalism, and journalists hoping to be paid for their work. What is coming to an end is paying for copies (an end to the 18th century suspension of the public’s liberty to make and sell copies in a free market).