Several countries move to make tech giants pay for news
A number of countries, including some EU states and Canada, are discussing following the lead of Australia to make tech giants such as Google pay for the news they distribute on their sites.
A new piece of legislation currently being mulled around the EU Parliament would prompt these companies to be forced to pay media outlets for their work and is being shadowed in the face of Google threatening to leave Australia over similar concerns.
Read more: Big Tech must keep tabs on Covid-19 "fake news," EU warns
Facebook has also threatened to cease the sharing of news on their site should the legislation pass.
This comes as part of a string of proposed sanctions on tech giants in recent months over fear their market domination will severely affect the ability for European startups to take shape as well as over concerns over their worrying control of the information people consume.
MEPs are currently looking at passing two news laws - the Digital Services Act (DSA) and Digital Markets Act (DMA) - and have offered the possibility of adding amendments which will draft in the Australian reforms.
These include requiring tech companies to inform publishers about how they rank news stories on their sites and including the options for binding arbitration for licensing agreements.
Alex Saliba, a Maltese MEP, and one of the drafters of the DSA said: “With their dominant market position in search, social media and advertising, large digital platforms create power imbalances and benefit significantly from news content. I think it is only fair that they pay back a fair amount.”
He added the EU should take steps to address the "acute bargaining power imbalances" with outlets.
Canada is also preparing to draft similar legislation against tech giants, which could force them to pay for the content they disseminate on their websites.
This comes on behalf of a campaign launched by News Media Canada, which represents newspaper publishers, which saw 105 publications across the nation run with blank front pages last Thursday and Friday in a bid to raise awareness.
The organisation claims print journalism is threatened by the rise of digital media and companies such as Facebook and Google are displaying the content for free while simultaneously taking 80% of digital revenue.
Canadian heritage minister Steven Guilbeault has been promising legislation and is looking into a formula for a law that ensures publications are adequately compensated for their work.
In a statement published on Thursday which preceded the campaign, he said: “News is not free and has never been."
“Our position is clear: publishers must be adequately compensated for their work and we will support them as they deliver essential information for the benefit of our democracy and the health and well-being of our communities," he added.
Canada's proposals are also following on from Australia's battle against tech giants and News Media Canada believes their actions against such companies have the right idea.
Google and Facebook have intensified efforts to reach licensing deals for news in Europe since the EU stepped up their copyright laws in 2019. The new proposals will give publishers a chance of compensation for the snippets used on these platforms.
The EU has already threatened tech giants with sanctions should they refuse to work with them to resolve their disputes.
Read more: Big Tech threatened with sanctions if they refuse to work with the EU
Brussels is already looking to curb the power of such companies in any way possible owing to a number of complaints.
Hungary has called for sanctions on these companies over what they see as a "systemic abuse of free speech" for the supposed censoring of conservative voices. Poland has since joined in with these calls.
France and the Netherlands have supported the EU's calls to curb their market power to prevent these companies from exploiting their positions to prevent the rise of local startups.
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