Leading experts from Canada and the United States have called upon countries around the world, including India, to join hands across borders and replicate Canada’s upcoming news media bargaining code.
During the virtual 2nd Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) Dialogue on Friday, the experts exchanged ideas on how to restore fairness to the relationship between news publishers and Big Tech platforms.
Taylor Owen, Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communication at Canada’s Max Bell School of Public Policy; Courtney Radsch, Fellow at UCLA Institute for Technology, Law and Policy in the US; and Paul Deegan, president and chief executive officer of News Media Canada agreed that voluntary deals that tech companies strike with news outlets were not enough. They were of the view that putting in place healthy legislations was the only way forward in creating a level-playing field.
Owen, Radsch, and Deegan counted India among the countries that needed to show the rest of the world how to rebalance the publisher-platform relationship in terms of revenue-sharing, transparency, and accountability. The speakers said the Canadian version of the news media bargaining code was more robust and transparent than the one Australia brought into effect in 2021.
Stating that the US, Europe, Canada, India and some countries in Europe were doing a good job of designing a broader framework, Dr. Radsch said: “…they should collaborate globally. In fact, UNESCO is building a global model that could go on to insulate the legislative effort in various countries, such as Botswana and Libya, where legislation can get killed…we just saw that happen in the US with the JCPA (Journalism Competition and Preservation Act) getting dropped.”
She said UNESCO’s effort will help countries come together and have a global regulatory framework using legislation.”
Deegan added: “Great to see other countries are picking it up. Australia is already off the mark. Next, there’s Canada. And then India, New Zealand, and many others are looking at Canada very closely. In fact, we’re all looking at the US as well”. Owen spelt out the areas in which Canada’s bill was “better than the Australian one”.
The Online News Act in Canada aims to make digital news intermediaries negotiate revenue-sharing with news publishers for use of their news content. It empowers the telecom commission to monitor how Big Tech firms deal with news outlets. The draft law, termed Bill C-18, was introduced into the Parliament earlier this year and is likely to be cleared by the end of spring next year, Deegan said.
Owen and Dr. Radsch also spoke about “a pushback from tech platforms that should serve as a lesson for India as it plans to devise legislation aimed at persuading Big Tech firms to deal with news publishers with more fairness”.
“Google has used a strategy that sought to divide publishers in response to the [Canadian] bill, engaging in supporting some independent network of publishers. So, there’s acrimonious debate between some publishers, which is unfortunate,” said Owen.
Dr. Radsch said: “The Meta-Google duopoly is controlling the digital advertising market, garnering a significant portion of revenue. Publishers are getting a reduced portion of the revenue, and there’s lack of data and accountability on where the money is going. The ad industry is an ally in this effort.”
At the event, Puneet Jain, CEO of HT Digital and Avinash Pandey, CEO of ABP Network, also shared their views on the issue.
The DNPA represents the digital arms of 17 top news media businesses in India. It tracks developments in the digital news ecosystems and promotes the interests of the digital news media outlets.