Gains on the back of the Indian news industry? This practice of big technology giants will not last long as the government is now jumping to protect the Indian media houses.
Minister of State Rajiv Chandrashekhar said, “The government is working on an IT law to protect Indian media from big tech companies. The law will ensure that Indian media does not suffer in dealing with companies like Google and Facebook.” The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) told India Today TV in an exclusive interview.
“Ministry of Technology will protect Indian media. Laws are needed to protect Indian media. Many countries have already done so,” he said.
The Center is not the first to look into these laws. Governments around the world are waking up to the business models of Big Tech companies.
The model adopted by these companies has been detrimental to the media houses and publishers.
Center wants tech giants to compensate media houses for content
It is not an easy task for media houses across the world. From Australia to France to India, bringing Facebook and Google to the table has been a daunting task, given their immense power.
Also read: | India plans to make Google, Facebook to let news publishers access their content: All you need to know
“Technology companies need to know that there is no free lunch,” Supreme Court lawyer Pawan Duggal told India Today TV.
“Finally, the Indian government has woken up to the power of Indian data. Monetization of Indian data has to be done to benefit Indians and not foreigners,” he said.
“Indian data and Indian companies have been at the mercy of social media and tech companies for decades. Now is the time to enact laws that not only protect but also open the doors to remuneration,” he said.
The root of the dispute between media houses and big tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is revenue sharing.
Indian newspapers and digital news publishers want a share of the revenue for their original content.
Also read: | Center plans to legislate to make Google, Facebook pay for news. What does it mean
Once a user is on Google, their search takes them to an article on a publisher’s website. Google earns from search, but publishers do not, and they think this is unfair.
Global digital and social media platforms have benefited from the internet boom and are currently growing in moolah with skyrocketing advertising revenues.
While platforms are mining money, newspapers and digital news publishers believe that this huge growth is driven by the content they produce.
Tremendous tug-of-war leads to GOOGLE, Facebook agrees to the law
Once the media houses realized they were at an end, they banded together and began a march for their rights.
The law in Australia and Germany is the result of a fight between the media houses.
Australia
Australia has passed a new law that would require digital platforms such as Facebook and Google to link their content to news feeds or search results for local media outlets and publishers.
It has become the first country in the world where a government-appointed intermediary will intervene if a commercial deal cannot be done independently between the platform and the publishers.
The intermediary will decide the final price that the platforms will be obliged to pay to the publishers in the country.
Germany and France
Last year, Google announced copyright deals with several large German and French publications.
Google said it is rolling out a new tool to offer license agreements to thousands of other European publishers.
Spain
Spain adopted amended EU copyright rules into law last year. Now, media outlets in the country interact directly with Google.
Also read: | Government considering IT law amendment to allow Google, Facebook to share revenue with news outlets
Spanish media outlets – big and small – make their own decisions about how their content is to be discovered and how they want to monetize that content.
European Union
European Union countries have adopted the 2019 EU Directive to give publishers additional rights over their content.
The new law allows search engines such as Google to link to and use snippets of news content, while giving publishers new rights when expanded previews are used online.
google check in india
India’s anti-trust agency, the Competition Commission of India (CCI), has ordered an investigation against Google over allegations from news publishers that the tech giant broke certain antitrust laws.
The Indian Newspapers Society (INS), in its complaint to the CCI, has stated that Alphabet Inc., Google LLC, Google India Pvt Ltd, Google Ireland Ltd and Google Asia Pacific Pte Ltd are allegedly abusing their dominant position relating to news referral services. Huh. Google Ad Tech Services in the Indian Online News Media Market in violation of Section 4 of the Competition Act, 2002.
The complaint also states that search engines such as Google take advantage of the revenue and returns they receive on the content provided by the publishers as compared to the publishers.
An investigation is underway against Google for an alleged abuse of dominance in news aggregation.
Also read: | India antitrust probe finds Google abused Android dominance, reveals report
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