Everybody in the world knows who is responsible for the wrong-doing at News Corporation.

[KeepItReal]

"Everybody in the world knows who is responsible for the wrong-doing at News Corporation. Rupert Murdoch.

More than any individual alive he is to blame, morally the deeds are his, he paid the piper and called the tune.

It is his company, his culture, his people, his business, his failures, his crimes, the price of profits and his power." - Tom Watson MP

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2012/may/01/select-committee-report-james-rupert-murdoch#block-10

[KansDem]

1. "...he paid the piper and called the tune."

I'm not sure the idiom "pay the piper" is used properly here, at least in the classic sense.

Pay the piper
Fig. to face the results of one's actions; to receive punishment for something. You can put off paying your debts only so long. Eventually you'll have to pay the piper. You can't get away with that forever. You'll have to pay the piper someday.

If he's still walking freely among us, he hasn't "paid the piper."

But he definitely "called the tune..."

[KeepItReal]

2. UK translation must mean he paid for the band and picked the music

eom

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. It's a well known proverb

For instance, in the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms:

"call the tune

Make important decisions, exercise authority, as in Nancy said that it's her turn to call the tune. The full term is Who pays the piper calls the tune, meaning whoever bears the cost of an enterprise should have authority over it. (Late 1800s) Also see the synonym call the shots."

'He who pays the piper calls the tune.' It is interesting to discover how the usage of this proverb has changed.(1) The simple phrase 'pay the piper' predates the longer version by some centuries. It was used simply to mean 'bear the cost', with no reference at all to controlling the piper's playing. Thus the Earl of Chesterfield, writing to his son about his hopes for peace in Europe, said, 'The other powers cannot well dance, when neither France nor the maritime powers can, as they used to do, pay the piper'.(2) In other words, war is unlikely, because no one will foot the bill. This usage remains alongside others right into the late twentieth century. Even when the phrase 'call the tune' or 'choose the tune' is added, the resulting proverb is not, at first, used to control the piper, but rather to emphasise the rights of the payer as against others who might be enjoying the piper's playing. Mr Evan Spicer, for example, argued, in a debate on the constitution of a public water authority for London, that as London ratepayers were paying for the water supply their council should have full control of it, rather than share control with the chairmen of outside councils: 'Londoners had paid the piper and should choose the tune'.(3)

Notes:

(1) See further F. P. Wilson, The Oxford Dictionary of English Proverbs, and B. J. Whiting, Modern Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings.
(2) Letters written by the late right honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to his son Philip Stanhope esq., 25 December 1753.
(3) Daily News, 18 December 1895.

http://www.rhul.ac.uk/classics/cucd/atkins.html

[leveymg]

4. Yes, but who's been Rupert's chief partner in crime and financial backer in his empire building?

[ladjf]

5. Yes, but what is going to be done about it? nt