Story by Reuters • Monday
WELLINGTON — The New Zealand government said it will introduce a law that will require big online digital companies such as Alphabet Inc’s Google and Meta Platforms Inc to pay New Zealand media companies for the local news content that appears on their feeds.
A 3D printed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta is seen in front of displayed Google logo in this illustration taken on November 2, 2021.© Provided by National Post
Minister of Broadcasting Willie Jackson said in a statement on Sunday that the legislation will be modelled on similar laws in Australia and Canada and he hoped it would act as an incentive for the digital platforms to reach deals with local news outlets.
“New Zealand news media, particularly small regional and community newspapers, are struggling to remain financially viable as more advertising moves online,” Jackson said. “It is critical that those benefiting from their news content actually pay for it.”
He added that there has been a significant decline in journalists in the last decade.
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“We’ve probably lost 50 per cent of journalists in the last 10 years. We’ve got to give hope to the small players out there. I’m proud to bring forward this legislation to support them,” Jackson told the media on Sunday.
“It’s not fair that the big digital platforms like Google and Meta get to host and share local news for free. It costs to produce the news and it’s only fair they pay,” he said, according to Stuff news website.
Jackson suggested it was likely the two companies would want to do a deal to circumnavigate the mandated process.
“In Canada, deals are being done everywhere. They’ve just done 150 deals because they don’t want to go legislation,” he said.
The new legislation will go to a vote in parliament where the governing Labour Party’s majority is expected to pass it.
Australia introduced a law in 2021 that gave the government power to make internet companies negotiate content supply deals with media outlets. A review released by the Australian government last week found it largely worked.
Since the News Media Bargaining Code took effect, the tech firms had inked more than 30 deals with media outlets compensating them for content which generated clicks and advertising dollars, said the Treasury department report.
“At least some of these agreements have enabled news businesses to, in particular, employ additional journalists and make other valuable investments to assist their operations,” said the report.
Canada’s Bill C-18 follows Australia’s footsteps which aims to force Google and Facebook to negotiate commercial deals for news revenue-sharing with Canadian publishers.
The two companies could end up funding 30 per cent of the cost of producing news in Canada, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated.
Currently, Google and Facebook earn 80 per cent of all digital ad revenue in Canada — ad revenue that used to go to Canadian news organizations and journalists. Since 2008, 468 news outlets have closed in Canada, most of them community news outlets.
In July, Postmedia, publishers of National Post, announced it had signed a deal with Google for payment of news articles. The National Post as well as daily and weekly newspapers and news sites around Canada, joined the ranks of other publishers that have signed deals with Google News Showcase, the company’s global content licensing program. Among them are Torstar, the company that publishes the Toronto Star, and the Globe and Mail, plus numerous smaller publishers around the country.
While Google followed the standard legislative process by presenting to Ottawa their proposed amendments of bill C-18, Facebook threatened to remove news off its platform if forced to share revenue with news publishers.
“Faced with adverse legislation based on false assumptions that defy the logic of how Facebook works, and which if passed, will create globally unprecedented forms of financial liability for news links and content, we feel it is important to be transparent about the possibility that we may be forced to consider whether we continue to allow the sharing of news content on Facebook in Canada,” Meta’s global policy director Kevin Chan said.
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