News advocacy group calls for action on content compensation legislation

A group representing news outlets in Canada has put out a call to Premier Justin Trudeau’s government to put in place legislation that would require Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. to compensate outlets when their content appears on their platforms. In a letter published Wednesday and signed by Jamie Irving, chair of News Media Canada and vice-president of Brunswick News Inc., which runs several newspapers throughout New Brunswick, the group requests action from the government on legislation it says it has been expecting for months. “Dear Prime Minister Trudeau: The media outlets publishing this letter are competitors. We publish news in every region in Canada. In both languages. We don’t always see eye-to-eye,” the letter starts. It was published Wednesday by multiple outlets including the National Post and Toronto Star. The letter claims news outlets throughout Canada are at the mercy of Google and Facebook as they “are using their monopoly powers in the same way throughout the world — choking off journalism from the financial resources it needs to survive.” “For months, you and the Minister of Canadian Heritage, Steven Guilbeault, have promised action to rein in the predatory monopoly practices of Google and Facebook against Canadian news media. But so far, all we’ve gotten is talk. And with every passing week, that talk grows hollower and hollower,” Irving said in the letter. Last June, Guilbeault said the government intended to introduce legislation that would require Google and Facebook to compensate news organizations when their content appears on their platforms, and that it would follow a similar approach to laws adopted by France and Australia. He previously commended actions taken in Australia where lawmakers moved to require Facebook to pay publishers for their news content. After Facebook decided to block news-related content from being shared in response, Guilbeault called the company’s move “highly irresponsible” and said he would press forward with introducing similar legislation in Canada. While Guilbeault’s proposals have not yet been officially announced, legislation targeting the web giants has surfaced in Canada, as Conservative Senator Claude Carignan introduced a bill in February that would amend the Copyright Act to mandate compensation for “journalistic works.” New Media Canada’s Wednesday letter claims Google and Facebook “are using their control of the internet and their highly sophisticated algorithms to divert 80 per cent of all online advertising revenue in Canada. And they are distributing the work of professional journalists across the country without compensation.” Facebook and Google did announce separate initiatives for news spending, but the letter says “until all news media in this country can negotiate collectively with Google and Facebook, the two multinationals will continue to use their market dominance to drive terms that are in their interests.”

News advocacy group calls for action on content compensation legislation

Brief | June 9, 2021

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News advocacy group calls for action on content compensation legislation

Brief | June 9, 2021

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