New laws to make tech companies pay for news will help, but there are 4 key problems
While setting up new revenue streams for struggling newsrooms is a welcome move, the laws themselves are far from perfect.
The Australian government has introduced new legislation, known as the News Bargaining Incentive, aiming to compel major tech companies to pay for the news content they use on their platforms. These laws were developed to address the issues arising from the original News Media Bargaining Code, which inadvertently allowed tech giants like Meta and Google to opt-out of deals by not displaying news articles on their platforms.
The updated legislation seeks to rectify this by compelling social media and search companies to enter into agreements with news publishers or pay a charge based on their Australian digital advertising revenue. The charge funds will be distributed to news organizations through the News Journalism Payment Scheme, designed to sustain journalism employment and build capacity within the industry.
Written by urgent.news from The Conversation AU's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
