OTTAWA (CU)_In February last year, the Australian government passed a landmark law requiring Google and Facebook to pay for news, making the Pacific nation the first country to set the rates for the tech giants to pay, if talks with media firms fail. A year later, Canada decided to follow in its footsteps, with a pledged to making a major online social network pay for news content.
Accordingly, last week, legislation requiring major tech giants to compensate Canadian media outlets to pay for news content that appear on the global platforms. Under the Bill C-18, lawmakers are looking to create a framework which would allow news agencies to collectively negotiate deals with tech companies to share online advertising revenue in the event where parties are unable to reach a privately negotiated agreement. The move is aimed at compelling those firms which dominate the online advertising market to contribute to the sustainability of the struggling news sector of Canada.
The bill, known as the Online News Act, was tabled by Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, who said it seeks to tackle the “market imbalance” existing between news outlets and tech giants. “The news sector in Canada is in crisis and this contributes to the heightened public mistrust and the rise of harmful disinformation in our society,” he said during a news conference on Parliament Hill. “We want to make sure that news outlets and journalists receive fair compensation for their work.”
In 2020, online advertising revenues jumped to a whopping $9.7-billion, of which more than 80 per cent was earned by Google and Facebook. This has meant that the dominance of tech companies is leaving few advertising dollars for everyone else, news outlets say. Accordingly, lobby group News Media Canada, along with several Canadian news organisations, are calling on the federal government to follow Australia’s example and introduce measures that would compel tech companies to pay for content.
