SYDNEY, Aug 12 (Reuters) – Australia will raise the number of deals large tech firms must strike with local news outlets under a revamp of its media licensing laws to be introduced to parliament on Thursday, the government said, adding the measure would distribute advertising revenue to more domestic outlets.
The changes also commit the government to giving 5% of funds raised under the scheme to the Australian Associated Press (AAP), the formerly industry-owned newswire service, which now runs as a non-profit.
Changes made after discussions between government and opposition would also require digital platforms to strike deals with at least eight media companies, up from six in an earlier draft.
The government also reinstated a cap limiting any single deal to 25% of a platform’s levy liability under the law, which is equal to 2.5% of a company’s Australian advertising revenue, with the amount they pay offset by the value of deals they strike.
The legislation revives Canberra’s effort to channel money from large technology companies to Australian news organisations whose content helps drive user engagement and advertising revenue on their platforms.
“People access news in different ways and from different sources, which is why we made changes to the distribution scheme to better support smaller and diverse media organisations,” said Communications Minister Anika Wells in a statement.
The funding for AAP, which supplies text, photographs and video to media organisations around the country, and which faced closure in 2020, recognises its role supporting public-interest journalism, the government said.
Australia’s original 2021 media bargaining law required Google and Facebook owner Meta to negotiate payment deals for news content, with a government-appointed arbitrator empowered to set terms if negotiations failed.
The tech giants struck a series of commercial agreements under that framework, but the government began redesigning the regime after Meta said it would stop paying for news content in Australia and other markets.
The new plan includes platforms such as TikTok and Microsoft’s LinkedIn.
(Reporting by Byron Kaye; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
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