Grumpy old men

Executives with major media companies position themselves as wronged parties in combat with Internet companies like Google, reports Reuters.

Accusations flew during a panel discussion at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association conference. The discussion began with talk of additional online revenue-generating possibilities, but it rapidly devolved into name calling.

Richard Parsons, CEO of Time Warner, called traditional media the Sioux Nation heading into battle against Custer in the form of Google and others.

The executives said hasty decisions on changed business models would be detrimental to existing profitable ventures since digital revenue was still a small overall percentage.

They also defended their combative stance against new media upstarts, including MySpace's decision to block streams from Photobucket last month and Viacom's lawsuit against Google. Such actions, they said, are needed to protect their copyrights and other operating standards.