(DIR) Home
        
        
       Minister Paul Goldsmith addresses concerns big tech companies could
       retaliate to Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill
        
 (HTM) Source
        
       ----------------------------------------------------------------------
        
       The legislation would require social media platforms that make use of
       news to strike deals with media outlets to pay for the content.
        
       ACT invoked its "agree to disagree" provision in its Coalition
       agreement and will not be supporting the bill through Parliament.
       However, with the support of National, NZ First and likely Labour, who
       originally introduced the legislation during its time in government,
       it will likely pass through Parliament later this year.
        
       Appearing on AM, Goldsmith addressed concerns tech companies could
       retaliate.
        
       Canadian news has been blocked from Meta platforms since August 2023
       so the tech giant can avoid paying fees to media companies. Meta has
       also suggested it could ban links to news on its sites such as
       Facebook and Instagram in Australia if it too makes it pay licensing
       fees.
        
       "All around the world, countries are trying different techniques to
       encourage what we've never seen before in history in the sense of
       these very, very powerful global powers that do wonderful stuff…"
       Goldsmith said.
        
       "But our public interest in all this is to ensure that we have
       sustainable journalism because that's an important part of our
       democracy and secondly that we continue to have access to our stories
       and our music on air in a very cluttered landscape."
        
       He said the purpose of the bill is to act as a backstop to ensure
       conversations around paying for material happen.
        
       Goldsmith said Google and Meta are not supportive of the bill.
        
       "There are risks with whatever you do. If we do nothing there's risks
       that they walk away from the current engagements. If we pass the bill
       there's risks that it could have consequences," he said.
        
       The bill has been slightly changed from Labour's legislation to move
       closer in line with Australia's approach which has a ministerial
       designation.
        
       "Nothing happens unless a minister is persuaded that those
       negotiations aren't happening in the proper way," Goldsmith said.
        
       "It's not an easy situation. We've had some strong encouragement from
       most of the media here to look seriously at it and that's what we're
       doing."
        
        
        
        
       ______________________________________________________________________
                                                 Served by Flask-Gopher/2.2.1