Australia Pushes Big Tech to Pay for News

Australia’s Parliament passed legislation on Thursday designed to push major technology companies into commercial agreements with domestic news publishers, with platforms that fail to strike sufficient deals facing a levy on their advertising revenue.

Under the new system, known as the News Bargaining Incentive, affected platforms face a charge equivalent to 2.5% of their Australian advertising revenue. The rules are expected to apply to major platforms including Meta, Google, TikTok and LinkedIn.

Platforms can reduce or eliminate their liability by striking commercial agreements with Australian news organizations. To qualify, the agreements must support the production of journalism or involve making news content available through their platforms.

The system gives platforms additional credit for agreements with smaller publishers, creating a stronger financial incentive to spread funding beyond Australia’s largest media companies.

Any revenue collected from platforms that choose not to strike sufficient deals will be distributed to Australia’s news sector to support journalism. The government says its preferred outcome is not to raise money through the levy, but to encourage technology companies to reach commercial agreements directly with publishers.

(Reuters, bak)