Real estate magnate Samuel Zell, who acquired control of the massive Tribune Co. media empire, doesn't think newspapers should be giving their content away to Google and other Internet aggregators.

An excerpt from the Washington Post story:

In conversations before and after a speech Zell delivered Thursday night at Stanford Law School in Palo Alto, Calif., the billionaire said newspapers could not economically sustain the practice of allowing their articles, photos and other content to be used free by other Internet news aggregators.

"If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?" Zell said during the question period after his speech. "Not very."

Newspapers have allowed Google to use their articles in exchange for a small cut of advertising revenue, but search engines also help to distribute their content to wider online audiences. Google and Yahoo have financial arrangements with wire services, such as the Associated Press, to provide news stories and photos. Yesterday, Google settled a copyright-infringement lawsuit with Agence France-Presse, which had alleged that Google posted news summaries, headlines and photos without permission.

Tribune owns 16 newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun, in addition to 26 radio and television stations and other properties. The company's newspaper Web sites have made little economic impact. In December, Times management called the paper's Web site a "feeble online presence."