Google and Facebook will soon have to pay news publishers a fee for utilising their original material. The government has intimated that it is considering requiring large internet giants in the content sector, such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Twitter, and Amazon, to pay Indian newspapers and digital news publishers a cut of the money generated by their original material. Countries such as Australia, Canada, France, and Spain have already embraced the procedure.
Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for IT and Electronics, stated that the government is currently considering revising IT laws to facilitate the changes. ‘ The market power on digital advertising that is currently being exercised by the Big Tech majors, which places Indian media companies at a disadvantage,’ Chandrasekhar told TOI, ‘is an issue that is being seriously examined in the context of new legalisations and rules’.
According to Chandrashekhar, original content producers have not benefited from the expansion of social media and internet platforms in India since income is not shared with them. ‘ The news publishers have little negotiation leverage, and this must be addressed legislatively. This is a critical problem for us,’ he remarked. Only last year, Chandrasekhar stated that there are no plans to have large digital companies pay for local journalism.
Australia approved a new media law earlier this year that requires large digital firms to pay for local journalism. Just before the new regulation went into effect, Facebook restricted news articles in Australia due to a dispute with the government regarding content payment. PM Scott Morrison termed Facebook’s decision to prohibit news articles in Australia ‘arrogant’ and ‘disappointing’.
‘The code will guarantee that news media enterprises are appropriately compensated for the information they provide, assisting in the sustainability of public-interest journalism in Australia,’ said Josh Frydenberg and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher in a joint statement. The government was also ‘pleased to see progress by both Google and, more recently, Facebook in striking commercial deals with Australian news media enterprises,’ according to the statement. Following a squabble with the Australian government, Facebook stopped users from accessing and sharing news on its platform in response to a regulation requiring the internet corporation to compensate news publishers for utilising their material.
Canada too proposed law on revenue sharing.
In May 2022, the Canadian government proposed legislation to ensure equitable income sharing between digital news publishers and social media companies such as Google and Facebook. Such a rule is required because firms generate cash from news items produced by media outlets but do not share the revenue with the original producers.
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