Global digital platforms Google and Facebook will be forced to pay for news content in Australia, the government said on Monday, as the coronavirus pandemic causes a collapse in advertising revenue.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, or ACCC, would release in late July draft rules for the platforms to pay fair compensation for the journalistic content siphoned from news media.
Frydenberg said he believed that Australia could succeed where other countries, including France and Spain, had failed in making Google and Facebook pay.
"We won't bow to their threats," Frydenberg told reporters. "We understand the challenge that we face. This is a big mountain to climb. These are big companies that we are dealing with, but there is also so much at stake, so we're prepared for this fight."
If it succeeds, Australia will become the first government in the world to implement a legal regime to govern the behavior of the tech giants, including financial penalties for those that profit from content produced by news media.
The ACCC had attempted to negotiate a voluntary code by which the global giants would agree to pay traditional media for their content.
But the parties couldn't agree on "this key issue of payment for content", Frydenberg said.
Australian Communications Minister Paul Fletcher said the country would take a different approach to Europe, relying on competition law rather than copyright law.
Source: China Daily
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