Australia is all set to introduce a law that would force companies like Google and Facebook to pay media companies for their news content. As chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission noted — “There is a fundamental bargaining power imbalance between news media businesses and the major digital platforms, partly because news businesses have no option but to deal with the platforms, and have had little ability to negotiate over payment for their content or other issues. We wanted a model that would address this bargaining power imbalance and result in fair payment for content, which avoided unproductive and drawn-out negotiations, and wouldn’t reduce the availability of Australian news on Google and Facebook.”
And while there is considerable euphoria surrounding this bill, there is also good reason to exercise caution. So we thought we could look at this more closely and see how it might impact the media ecosystem in Australia. Possibly even the world?