Revised US law seeks to help small publications take on Big Tech

A revised Bill, passed unanimously by both the Democratic and Republican parties of the United States of America, seeks to help small, regional publications to seek better revenue sharing from advertisements earned by the likes of Alphabet and Meta Platforms. The latter, which are the holding companies of Google and Facebook respectively, have often been accused of monopolistic market practices — using ad-driven revenues to become the mammoth corporations that they are today.

According to a Reuters report, the revised Journalism Competition and Preservation Act will seek to ease out “legal obstacles” for news organisations to negotiate “collectively, and secure fair terms from gatekeeper platforms (such as Google and Facebook) that regularly access news content without paying for its value.”

Once the Bill comes into effect, smaller publications, which according to US law would be publications with fewer than 1,500 full-time employees, would benefit from the new law. According to media reports in the US, this would notably exclude international multi-format publications, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal.

To be sure, the US is not the first nation to seek a way to cut down on the dominance of Big Tech platforms. In February last year, Australia passed landmark legislation that forced both Facebook and Google to pay publications — for using their content to earn ad revenues on their respective platforms. While Facebook had initially threatened to ban sharing of news content in Australia in light of the impending regulation, it subsequently backtracked on any such plan.

India, too, has been mulling over a similar plan. On July 16, Union minister of state for skill development, entrepreneurship, and electronics and information technology (IT), Rajeev Chandrasekhar, said in an interview with India Today that the central government is considering legal regulations that could allow publications in the country to earn higher revenues from big tech firms.

“The government is working on an IT Law to protect Indian media from Big Tech companies. The law will make sure that the Indian media is not at a disadvantage when dealing with the likes of Google and Facebook,” Chandrasekhar said.

Media outlets in the US highlighted that such a Bill could incentivise local, regional publications without deep-pocketed owners from hiring more editorial staff, thus continuing to operate.

Danielle Coffey, executive vice-president and general counsel of US-based newspaper industry organisation, News Media Alliance, told a regional newspaper, NY Daily News, that small publications such as the latter help Big Tech firms generate “a ton of revenue”, but the same “is not paid back to news publishers.”

“Once we move forward (with the Bill), we’ll be able to compel payment from the platforms, which would be transformative for our entire industry,” he added.