CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – Australian laws requiring Google and Facebook to pay for news are ready to go into effect, although the law architect said digital giants will take time to reach agreements with the media .
Parliament on Thursday approved final amendments to the so-called Media Negotiation Code agreed between Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In exchange for the changes, Facebook agreed to lift the ban on accessing and sharing news to Australians.
Rod Sims, the competition regulator who drafted the code, was happy that the amended legislation would resolve the market imbalance between Australian news publishers and the two gateways to the Internet.
“All signs are good,” Sims told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“The purpose of the code is to address the market power that Google and Facebook clearly have. Google and Facebook need media, but they don’t need any particular media company, and that meant media companies couldn’t make business deals,” he said. add the chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
The rest of the laws had been passed in Parliament before, so they can now be applied.
Google has already established agreements with major Australian news companies in recent weeks, including News Corp. and Seven West Media.
Frydenberg said he was pleased to see progress from Google and, more recently, from Facebook in reaching trade deals with Australian news companies.
But Country Press Australia, which represents 161 regional newspapers across the country, has expressed concern that small publications may be lost outside big cities.
Sims said he was not surprised that the platforms first agreed to deals with the city’s big companies.
“I see no reason for anyone to doubt that all journalism will benefit,” Sims said.
“It simply came to our notice then. Google and Facebook do not have unlimited resources to talk to everyone. I think this has a long way to go, “he added.
Chris Moos, a professor at Oxford University’s School of Business, said the latest amendments amounted to a “small victory” for Zuckerberg.
Moos said the legislation would likely result in small payments for most Australian news publishers. But Facebook could once again block Australian news if negotiations were denied.
The legislation was designed to curb the enormous bargaining power of Facebook and Google in their negotiations with Australian news providers. Digital giants would not be able to abuse their positions by making take-away pay offers to news companies for their journalism. In contrast, in the event of a dispute, an arbitral tribunal would make a binding decision on a winning bid.
Frydenberg and Facebook confirmed that the two sides agreed to amendments to the proposed legislation. The changes would give digital platforms a month’s notice before they are formally designated under the code. This would give those involved more time to negotiate agreements before they are forced to establish binding arbitration agreements.
A statement from Campbell Brown, Facebook’s vice president of news, added Tuesday that the deal allows the company to choose which publishers it will support, including small and local ones.
Frydenberg said his department will review the code within a year to “make sure it delivers results that are consistent with the intent of government policy.”