There are lessons to be learnt for India from the ongoing global churning among the technology giants over the growing moral argument that they should be made to pay the media companies for the reuse of the news content on their platforms and also share advertising revenues with the local publishers. Microsoft’s support for the proposed legislation in Australia, the first such law in the world to force social media platforms to compensate news outlets for their journalism, signals a major development that can lead to the emergence of a template for the much-needed lifeline for the news media sector. Such a legislation will bring in fundamental changes in the way the internet functions and help chart a new course for the struggling news media industry. Under the News Media Bargaining Code of Australia, Google and Facebook would be required to pay publishers for the privilege of linking to their news stories, which both have termed illogical and unworkable since it undermines their business models. Microsoft’s search engine Bing may account for less than 5% of the market in the country, but it has already offered to fill the void. Australia’s tough stand in framing new rules of engagement between traditional media outlets, which are financially distressed, and the tech giants — which capture a significant share of advertising revenues without investing in news coverage, human resources or material inputs — is being seen as a creative proposal to support a free press.
It must be pointed out that the internet and social media have not been very kind to the free press. In India, there has been hardly any debate over the impact of intermediary platforms on the health of news media outlets. The 2019 European Union copyright rules, which formed the basis for the media publications to secure royalties for online use of their content, must be studied by India so that a similar model can be replicated here. The data protection Bill, now being fine-tuned, must incorporate appropriate guidelines regarding the responsibilities of digital service providers to press publications. As the technology of digital platforms has evolved, so too has their market dominance. Creating a mandatory code for revenue-sharing ensures a level playing field. It is all about the relative market power of the news companies and the tech behemoths. With 282 million unique visitors, India is the second largest online news consuming nation after China while the digital advertising spends in 2019 grew 24% year-on-year to Rs 27,900 crore. They are expected to grow to Rs 51,340 crore by 2022. At present, Google and Facebook corner the bulk of online advertising revenues leaving a pittance for news producers. There is a strong case for equitable sharing of revenues.