Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch Threatens To Sue BBC

SYDNEY (AP) — News Corp. chief executive Rupert Murdoch threatened to sue the British Broadcasting Corp. for allegedly stealing content from his company's newspapers and said News Corp. is considering pulling its stories from Google news searches.

In an interview with Australia's Sky News, of which News Corp. is a partial owner, the media mogul was asked why he expects Internet users to accept his plan to charge readers to access his newspapers' stories online when they can read the news for free on other Web sites such as the BBC's.

"But we're better," he said in the interview broadcast Saturday. "And anyway, if you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we'll be suing them for copyright. They'll have to spend a lot more money on a lot more reporters to cover the world when they can't steal from newspapers."

But he said he didn't think the matter would end up in a courtroom.

"They know the law," he said. "They will adapt."