Ace Australia’s “News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code” has made it mandatory for big tech companies to pay news publishers for showing links on their platforms. The implementation of the system has been tested globally and India Maybe thinking of taking a similar step.
Recently, Minister of State for IT and Electronics Rajiv Chandrashekhar told times of IndiaThat the government is thinking of passing a law that would allow tech companies like Google, Meta, Twitter, Apple, Microsoft and others to cut their advertising revenue in exchange for Indian newspapers and digital news publishers using their original content. is required.
He said: “The market power over digital advertising that is currently being exercised by Big Tech giants, which puts Indian media companies at a disadvantage, is an issue that needs to be taken seriously in the context of new legalization and regulations. is being investigated.”
However, it is worth mentioning that in addition to Australia, several European countries have enacted similar laws, requiring such tech corporations to pay fair compensation to content producers for using their content and promoting it in search results. .
Meanwhile, in the case of India, the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) and the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) filed complaints with the Competition Commission of India (CCI), accusing Google of abusing it, first bringing the issue to the limelight. Put it. A dominant position in news aggregation for imposing unfair terms on news publishers.
MoS Chandrasekhar said that news publishers have no bargaining power, which has to be addressed legislatively as it is a “critical issue”. Additionally, he believes the rule could be implemented through regulatory interventions as part of existing IT law amendments.
rein in big tech
As news organizations struggle to keep pace with dwindling resources in the digital age, tech businesses have expanded, prospered, and become involved in many aspects of modern life. Given the uneven playing field, many people wonder whether Big Tech should be paying for the journalism they consume.
News organizations have been complaining for years about how Internet companies use content in search results or other features without paying, because they are losing advertising revenue to online aggregators like Google and Facebook.
It should be understood that while tech platforms can help news publishers increase the visibility of their content, more visits do not always equal increased revenue. Therefore, it became a global issue to find and implement effective rules that can solve the inequalities of this system.
Australia’s News Media Bargaining Code and the European Union’s Digital Copyright Directive have opened the door for other countries to follow suit to make Big Tech pay for journalism.
As a result, local media have prospered since reports from Australia showed Big Tech had to pay for the content. For example, Google and Facebook paid Australian media companies nearly $200 million last year because of new rules that have benefited local businesses.
After a conflict between Google and Australia’s consumer regulator, it became the first country in the world to enact such a rule, which required technology platforms to negotiate compensation with a local media business, and has since , media companies and Big Tech have agreed to about 30 partnerships.
According to reports, Meta also agreed to pay Australia’s News Corp after Australia passed the law.
To restore the balance between media corporations and tech giants, the UK is also looking to draft similar laws, allowing tech companies like Meta and Google to allow media providers to display their news in content feeds or search results. forcing to compensate.
In Canada, the government has also decided to mandate that when tech giants benefit from media content, they split the proceeds with Canadian firms. In April, Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez introduced the Online Journalism Act, or Bill C-18.
If the bill passes, major tech companies can anticipate that a portion of news revenue will go to the organizations that produce the content. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, the designated regulator, will determine which outlets receive the cut in revenue.
Meanwhile, Microsoft, together with the European Publishers Council and News Media Europe, as well as two groups representing European newspaper and magazine publishers, pushed for a system for large tech platforms to pay for news.
However, according to reports from last year, under a similar law in France, Google has entered into a 5-year deal to pay Agence France-Presse for its news content. The AFP agreement comes after France passed a copyright law that establishes “neighborhood rights”, asking big tech companies to begin negotiations with news publishers seeking license fees.
Additionally, in 2021, Google entered into agreements with more than 120 French news publishers to pay $76 million over three years. Similarly, Meta’s Facebook also signed a deal with a French conglomerate representing 300 French publishers to pay for news content to be broadcast on their users’ feeds.
In addition, under the European Copyright Directive, which allows publishers to pay for using their content whenever an online platform is available, Google has allowed more than 300 news outlets operating in the European Union to publish their articles on the search engine. signed agreements with.
Google said in a blog post in May that publishers in Hungary, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland had signed the deal. But the amount to be paid by Google for the partnership was not mentioned in the post.
But now according to reports, in response to growing concerns that the tech giant was undercutting news organizations’ advertising revenue, Facebook decided in 2019 to pay multiple publishers to feature their content in its news section, but the social The media platform and its parent company Meta are now considering paying for such content.
According to a June report by wall street journalSome news organizations could face potentially tens of millions of dollars in revenue losses as the social media giant has not indicated that it plans to extend the three-year contract (signed in 2019) that expires this year. intends.
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