Australia Wants Tech Companies to Pay for Content: The End of the Free Lunch or a Dangerous Precedent?

Recent plans by the Australian authorities to adopt legislation that would force large tech companies to pay for news media content shared on their platforms have stirred a heated debate. The planned law is expected to force companies such as Google and Facebook to negotiate payment for content with news media companies. Failure to agree on a sum would then require the intervention of an arbiter who will have the final say on setting the payment amount.

Tech behemoths such as Google and Facebook criticized the planned rules, threatening to take drastic steps if the legal provisions are adopted. Facebook is considering removing news from its feed. Google wants to go as far as removing its search engine from Australia. That would mean that 19 million people using Google and 17 million Facebook users in Australia will lose access to these services.

Will the Australian government go ahead and approve these legal provisions? If so, how will the news media be affected? What about the regular users? Will such legislation create what a Google official described as a “dangerous precedent”?

We broached these questions, and more, with Benedetta Brevini, a journalist and professor at the University of Sydney, and Bernard Keane, political editor with the Australian magazine Crikey, in a conversation moderated by CMDS Director Marius Dragomir.

Did you miss the event? You can watch the recording now: