Copyright, Australia Passes Reimbursement Act for Online Editorial Content

• Australia, Facebook lifting news block after agreement with government

• Google Australia pays media for use of news: over $ 30 million deal

• Copyright, from European publishers and Microsoft proposed for online content refunds

• Copyright, Google announces agreement with French publishers

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February 25, 2021 The Australian Parliament approved a completely new law, which forces the giants of the web to

through their platforms: a measure that could now be taken as an example in other countries, from the United States to Europe.

Canberra has, in theory, won the tug-of-war with Facebook, which had gone so far as to block the sharing of content from Australian news outlets in response to the government's initiative, and then backtracked in exchange for some changes to the law, but remains the fact that the final text eases the rigidity of the points most contested by Big Tech.

In practice, the obligation to negotiate with the media ceases and it is established that the compensation will be granted through arbitration in the event of failure of the negotiation. The hypothesis of arbitration, among other things, had already been requested by European publishers and Microsoft, with an agreement to study a formula announced a few days ago. 

have urged EU regulators to require online platforms to establish arbitration to decide how to share revenues with news publishers, a pivotal point in the confrontation between Facebook and the Australian government. In practice, they argue that copyright rules, revised by the EU in 2019 and coming into effect in June, will force Google and other online platforms to sign separate licensing agreements with musicians, authors and news publishers to use their work. but such, they point out agreements are not enough without the possibility of arbitration. 

Google had threatened to suspend the search engine in Australia, but then decided to focus on separate agreements, with two local TV networks, Nine Entertainment and Seven West Media for a total of 60 million Australian dollars a year (about 39 million euro) and, for an undisclosed amount, with Rupert Murdoch's News corp, which owns 60% of the media in the country. After the approval of the law. Google has announced that it will pay for news on the new 'Showcase' product, which will be unveiled in Australia this year, and Facebook will pay for the publications that appear in 'News', another product set to launch in the coming months. 

Australian law encourages web giants to make deals with publishers on news payments, but if negotiations fail, independent arbitration enters the scene. According to the Australian government, the negotiation process is in this way "fairer" because it offers publishers greater leverage. The Australian Antitrust Authority (ACCC) argues that publishers have very little or no negotiating power in the face of monopolies such as Google and Facebook and disputes over the value of news content will now be resolved by arbitration, a mechanism that analysts say protects content providers. Another unprecedented point, the tech platforms will have to communicate changes in their

to publishers in advance

.

The approved text includes an obligation for the Australian government to consider

from digital platforms for news content, including commercial agreements with publishers. In addition, the government will have to notify the platform one month in advance of its intention to resort to arbitration. The position of the platforms is that they are already helping content providers by driving traffic to their sites. Facebook and Google, for example, argue that their job is simply to mediate in helping users find news content. The two giants have promised that they will spend a billion dollars each on news over the next three years. 

Both companies have put a lot of pressure on the Australian government to change the law. A regulation that, the Australian government states in a statement, ensures that publishers "are fairly remunerated for the content they generate, helping to support public interest journalism in Australia". 

Meanwhile, in

, last November Google announced the signing of an agreement with

including Le Monde, Courrier International, L'Obs, Le Figaro, Libération, and L'Express, as part of the negotiations on so-called rights related to copyright. The news could soon return to the search engine also in

. The Google News service has been suspended since 2014, in response to legislation in Madrid that required the payment of a mandatory collective license fee to republish news headlines or snippets. The issue is also back on the table because Spain has to implement the European Union copyright directive of 2019 by June, like other states, so the Spanish government could allow companies to negotiate individual agreements with content providers. The Spanish Ministry of Culture has confirmed that the government is working on a bill.