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Big Tech has enabled unparalleled reach, engagement and innovation in news media. Lawmakers in the United States now appear poised to join efforts to fix the lopsided relationship between big tech and news publishers, with smaller news organizations from tech giants such as Meta and Google seeking bipartisan and bicameral support for the revised Senate bill.
More than a year after Australia adopted a pioneering new media negotiation code and the EU’s copyright directive took effect, the idea of making Big Tech pay for the news they consume is gaining support around the world, with lawmakers in Brazil, Canada, India, Indonesia, Sweden, the US and explore interventions that Britain hopes will support an industry facing extinction, recognized as essential to democratic governance. Governments are considering competition policies to claw back revenue from tech behemoths and the adtech infrastructure they control, or to force news media to negotiate with aggregators and other platforms that use their content.
Three policy platforms
These regulatory efforts are clustered around three main types of intervention: taxation, competition/antitrust, and intellectual property. Building blocks include:
- Allowing publishers to bargain collectively without violating antitrust laws
- Forums need to negotiate with publishers to use news clippings
- Platforms are required to pay license fees to publishers.
- Taxing digital advertising and using the proceeds to support news media
Australia’s 2021 News Media Negotiations Code will force platforms to negotiate fees for media outlets to use their content, and despite a widespread campaign by media mogul Rupert Murdoch to criticize it as a subsidy to Big Media, Big Tech, the law has rejuvenated the country’s journalism. Sector. Australian media outlets big and small have benefited and new journalism jobs are being created in a sector that has lost thousands of opportunities during the coronavirus pandemic – although a lack of transparency in commercial deals between publishers and platforms remains problematic.
Meanwhile, India’s competition authority opened its own inquiry earlier this year following an antitrust complaint filed by digital publishers, alleging that Google unfairly controls the news aggregator business and does not allow publishers to earn competitive revenue due to a “lack of transparency” in advertising. and information asymmetry.
The Indian government may not wait for the request before taking action. Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekha said late last month that the government would seek to amend the IT Act to address anti-competition in the adtech market and compensate publishers when online services use their content. Filling their platforms and profits. India is one of the few countries in the Global South with the universal knowledge, user base and regulatory influence to adopt Australia’s strategy of relentlessly pushing online platforms to promote politically favorable content and suppress critical dissent.
One of the challenges in implementing these policies in any country is determining what counts as journalism and which news organizations should benefit. Fears that smaller outlets will be left behind in trade deals between big publishing firms and Big Tech have undermined efforts to pass similar laws elsewhere. The perception that Murdoch’s media empire is a major beneficiary in Australia has prompted independent media in Brazil to oppose similar laws to Google and Facebook, while in Canada a coalition of small, independent publishers has called for secret backroom deals to push for reforms. Canadian Online News Act. These and other issues are suggesting that journalists will not benefit from such an arrangement and will be left behind.
In addition to concerns surrounding anti-competitive behavior, lawmakers around the world have also recognized the significant financial and editorial impacts on news organizations, including reduced revenue, closures and layoffs, and the impact of major changes in platform algorithms or priorities. When news readers and subscribers are forced to rely on information provided by major Big Tech platforms, even when it is false. From Facebook’s infamous missus to video’s decision to prioritize professionally produced media content over meaningful content from friends, to the recent shift to TikTok-style content, news organizations have been forced to adjust their priorities and budgets. . For example, Australian law platforms include provisions for media outlets to make major algorithmic changes (although this concept is problematically ambiguous) that can have a significant impact on their visibility and credibility, and Indian publishers want the same. Of course, these requirements will have little impact on news media revenue if Facebook moves away from news reporting.
Unlike other countries, European regulators have tried another tactic to renegotiate power dynamics by modernizing intellectual property law. The EU Copyright Directive created the right to claim copyright, not just publishers, and thereby allow online service providers to be paid for the use of their content by news outlets. This concept of “subsidiary copyright” or “neighboring rights” creates a framework for news outlets to negotiate licensing fees with platforms that use their content.
Until recently, the US was also investigating whether a new approach to copyright was needed along European lines, but it appears unlikely to pursue it after this summer’s Copyright Office report recommended against it. National copyright laws provide some protections for publishers (which were lacking in the EU before the Copyright Directive) and copyright review does little to address market imbalances that make it difficult for news publishers to negotiate higher license fees. Tech
Parasitic or symbiotic?
Ultimately, the crux of this love-hate relationship between Big Tech and traditional news media is that search engines, timelines, and news aggregators use headlines, news clippings, and images from publishers and authors, often without permission or payment. It has led to arguments that it allows him to profit from news content produced by others without paying for it.
While “fair use” in copyright law allows the use of small amounts of copyrighted material in certain circumstances without the specific copyright owner’s prior permission, the question of whether this applies to news aggregators and the world’s most profitable online platforms remains unsettled. Although critics say that imposing a “link tax” would harm the free flow of information online and undermine the foundations of an open and interconnected Internet, this has not yet happened.
The devil is in the details
To adopt any of these policies, a country needs a strong ecosystem of existing legal frameworks, digital rights governance bodies, and organized civil society that includes independent professional associations, digital rights groups, and public interest lawyers. A digital rights management system should be put in place and a designated third party should collect and distribute license fees. Rights holders must plug into this system and trust collecting societies to benefit. Definitions of journalism and news media will be critical and controversial.
For small publishers, the question of who benefits and how payments are distributed is also a challenge for journalists writing stories even in advanced economies and strong democracies, not to mention those where media repression is rife or press freedom is limited. . Pursuing any of these policies requires not only political will and technical know-how, but also complex institutional design, legitimacy, and trust.
That is why the idea of taxing digital advertising can be more attractive and easy to implement, although it is not an easy task to know which news outlets should benefit.
Tax technique to support journalism
As digital advertising has generated record-breaking profits for big tech companies like Google and now Meta (formerly Facebook), and as more people use these platforms to find news content produced by publishers, a wealth of ideas on how to redistribute some of it has attracted interest from publishers and policymakers. Especially since the duopoly not only accounts for the majority of digital advertising revenue worldwide, but also dominates the complex and opaque adtech system between advertisers and publishers; Where middlemen spend one-third of the cost of this advertisement.
But experts are divided on how much publishers and platforms benefit from traffic generated from social media and news aggregator referrals.
On the one hand, headlines, photos, and clips that appear in search results, social media feeds, and news aggregators can drive some traffic to publisher websites and generate revenue. This is considered referral traffic, as opposed to direct or organic traffic to a publisher’s website, which is more profitable and allows them to gather information on their users and build trust and direct relationships.
On the other hand, news improves the quality of content on tech platforms whose aim is to keep users in their garden as much as possible. Competition authorities in India, the UK and elsewhere are investigating whether the use of snippets by tech platforms creates unbalanced bargaining power.
Improving this largely opaque market and competitiveness will help level the playing field and allow media to take a share of the advertising pie. Disputes over news clippings and referral traffic pricing, fair use and anti-competitive conditions on tech platforms are accentuated by the lack of factual information and the complex and opaque adtech ecosystem dominated by Google and Meta. This means that there is a lack of data to inform evidence-based policy making. Public policy around the world is being made on the basis of limited evidence and insufficient understanding of causation or correlation.
The US Congress is considering the current draft 2021 Journalism Competition and Protection Act, There are opportunities to bridge the information gap. Collecting and accessing mandated data from the AdTech ecosystem and the relationship between traffic and monetization may be considered because without these critical data, policymakers may base policy on myths and assumptions. Other industries with sensitive information and trade secrets may provide information in ways that improve accountability while respecting privacy, but this should not be avoided here. Improved Transparency This lack of transparency and access to information held by platforms will level the playing field and give news outlets around the world a fighting chance.
Dr. Courtney C. Radsch is a fellow at UCLA’s Institute for Technology, Law, and Policy, where her research and teaching work focuses on the nexus of technology, media, and rights.
Meta and Google are general, unrestricted donors to the Brookings Institution. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and are not influenced by any donation.
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