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In a speech on the occasion of National Press Day last week, Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw called attention to the issue of fair compensation to media companies for the use of their content by big technology platforms. The Internet’s rapid growth has created a power imbalance between news publishers and large online enterprises which now set the financial terms for their use of content created by others. Many countries are grappling with this issue, and new regulations are taking shape. In Australia and France, Google and Meta are increasingly required to negotiate fairer revenue-sharing agreements and licensing deals with publishers. A similar push in India will be an essential step to ensure the continued vibrancy and financial sustainability of news organisations, which are under threat in their traditional and online formats. The government’s affirmation of support for fair revenue sharing in favour of news publishers — first expressed last year — is more important than ever. As Artificial Intelligence makes stealthy, large-scale appropriation of content easier and when new business models are built on that technological capacity, fair compensation for original creators is an urgent question. The time has come to rapidly act to give force to these pronouncements through law. The pushback that these steps will likely face from Big Tech platforms make it that much more important to start the work quickly, and with resolve.
The Minister has also expressed concern on the issue of misinformation and fake news. It is important for the government to establish trust as a good faith broker and avoid the temptation to act as a regulator or censor of content. Trust comes, for instance, by taking steps to improve the public’s media literacy in general. The government’s desire, now stalled by the judiciary — to act as a fact-checker — in fact, to be the final authority over what is or is not true about the Union government, is not helpful. Trust is established by empowering a strong press to pursue and verify falsehoods vigorously; and not by state regulation and censorship. The partisan application of existing rules by authorities that go after the Opposition parties on charges of misinformation while turning a blind eye towards violations by the ruling party must also stop. Only an even-handed application of laws against misinformation will act as a deterrent for bad actors. India’s news industry has always suffered from fundamental financial and political challenges. The Internet age offers the opportunity to work on remedies. The firms that control the Internet must be more effectively regulated, and government interventions, which are necessary, must not result in state high-handedness.
Published – November 28, 2024 12:10 am IST
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Fair share: On Big Tech and media content
