It was a contorted path to find a way to block the ABC and SBS from accessing the government’s attempt to force open the Google/Facebook money pot to traditional media, but Treasurer Frydenberg seemed to find it this morning as he announced the next step on the road to a mandatory code between big tech and old media.
It required trashing the key principle underlying the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) rationale for requiring big tech to pay Australia’s old media. As a result, the government’s approach reflects more the whinges of publishers than the findings of the ACCC.
The principle that the ACCC used to underpin its proposal for a mandatory code to govern arrangements between news media and the Google/Facebook duopoly was simple: the tech platforms have built and monetised their reach through the content produced by others — particularly news media.
As ACCC chair Rod Sims said this morning: “News content brings significant benefits to the digital platforms, far beyond the limited direct revenue generated from advertising shown against a news item. News media businesses should be paid a fair amount in return for these benefits.” (Google and Facebook say “news” is only a small part of the content on their platforms.)
Payments should, Sims says, take into account the cost of producing that journalism. Boiled clear of any waffling and legalese, the publishers’ complaint has been that big tech has taken their advertising dollars and they want them back.
This global shift in advertising has gutted the commercial media business model which has been unable to compete with the tech platforms for digital advertising. Over half of all advertising in Australia is now online, and most of that flows through Facebook and Alphabet-owned Google.
That’s the rationale behind the value News Corp Australia’s boss Michael Miller put on the use of news content: about 10% of the largely advertising-based Australian revenues of the big two tech companies. $1 billion.
Frydenberg backed the commercial publishers this morning, talking up the crisis in privately-owned media, particularly regional and local media.
But the ABC, he said, was funded by the government and didn’t need big tech’s money.
Beyond the money, the newly announced code will require news media to get 28 days’ notice of algorithm changes likely to affect traffic to news, including display and presentation, ranking of news behind paywalls, and advertising directly associated with news.
It will also require the tech companies to give news media the data they collect through how readers (that is, you) consume news on digital platforms — how much, how long, etc. Platforms (in this case, Facebook) must also include an ability to turn off comments on individual stories, as publishers may be liable for defamatory comments.
The proposals will be out for public comment for the next four weeks. After that, the process for the code will be embodied in legislation which the government will hope to have in place by the end of the year.
The legislation will empower the commercial publishers to form their own “union” for collective bargaining and require platforms designated by the Treasurer — initially Facebook and Google — to negotiate with that “union” over use of news content, including payment.
If the two sides can’t agree within three months, the publishers “union” get something real unions don’t: “final offer mandatory arbitration” — access to an agreed (or imposed) arbitrator who picks whichever offer they consider most fair.
The timeline through comment, legislation, negotiation and arbitration suggests the process should take between nine months and a year, in time for Australia’s next election.
“the newly announced code will require news media to get 28 days’ notice of algorithm changes likely to affect traffic to news”
Be careful what you wish for.
If I was Google et al, I’d just stop indexing Australian commercial news publishers. They have no god-given right to be indexed. I’m sure that would send Fletcher and Frydenberg into conniptions if it was only ABC and SBS getting indexed.
I have read elsewhere a while back that not using Australian commercial news sources is exactly what they plan to do. Australia won’t be “forcing” Google or Facebook to do anything. On the other hand, history has shown that Facebook in particular can be used to do all sorts of things for, or to, politicians – especially during elections. Rupert’s news business is cooked and the fact that he has tried this desperate stuff highlights just how far gone they are.
Looks like Rupert has borrowed the Josh Thatcher glove puppet to provide cover for this favour, but I am not sure what his gripe is. All the News sites are behind paywalls so the articles cannot be read by a non-subscriber who finds an article via social media. So unless somebody is dumb enough to sign up to read Bolt, Devine, Creighton, Kelly et al, what could laughingly be called Rupert’s “intellectual ” property is not at risk.
If on the other hand people find News articles on Google/Facebook and then sign up with the old spider, shouldn’t Rupert be paying the social media owners for delivering readers to him.
Just trying to get my head around this.
The good news is that the LNP Coalition govt won’t be able to use the excuse of the ABC receiving funding from GoogleFacebook to cut its budget. Imagine if the govt had calculated the ABC would receive $50 million a year from Google Facebook and reduced its budget by that amount. The next step would be overestimating next year’s ABC revenue and cutting its budget by even more, with the undertaking to top up the gap retrospectively, squeezing the ABC further.
The other good news is the likelihood of GoogleFacebook ceasing its use of Murdoch/Nine content and only using ABC content. If it enables more people to see the value of the ABC, then so much the better.
If the latter occurs & ABC content is sourced at least it will raise the standard of reporting & accuracy available via Facebook/Google.
I’d like to know what proportion of News Ltd’s web traffic comes via Facebook and Google – almost all of it, I’d say. Hopefully this will be the final nail on the coffin of uncle Rupert’s backward media empire
from https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/france-and-australia-to-google-and-facebook-pay-for-news/
When Spain enacted a new copyright regime in 2012 and told Google to pay publishers for excerpts and snippets served up to users, Google shut down Google News in Spain rather than pay.
“What Google said was ‘If you don’t want to be on Google … you will disappear,’ ” said Nikos Smyrnaios, a professor at University of Toulouse (France) who studies the impacts of big tech. “Today in France, Google is implementing the same strategy.”
So what happens if/when google simply decides to include news sites on page 2?
Given the ABC is not included in the deal, I am already a subscriber to crikey and smh, and if I read an article on a news website any, I can really see why google might be interested.
Now … I do see value in Google ‘doing a netflix’ and creating their own news sources, but that would not make most in traditional media any happier either.