CRA says the release of the ACCC draft mandatory code of conduct to govern agreements between tech giants and Australian media companies is “an important step forward”.
Chief executive officer of Commercial Radio Australia, Joan Warner, says, “The release of the draft code is an important step towards fairer negotiations between the tech giants and Australian media companies.
“The draft code has the potential to address some of the serious issues raised by the commercial radio industry, such as revenue sharing and greater transparency of algorithms.
“We will carefully examine the details and the implications for broadcasters during the consultation process.
“Given the difficult conditions that local media are currently trading in, it’s vital that broadcasters can negotiate fairer partnerships with Google and Facebook as soon as possible, and we’d like to see those in place by the end of the year.”
The development of a mandatory code of conduct is part of the Government’s response to the ACCC’s Digital Platforms Inquiry final report to promote competition, enhance consumer protection and support a sustainable Australian media landscape in the digital age.
Under the proposed bargaining arrangements, commercial media organisations will be able to enter into negotiations with the digital platforms to determine an appropriate payment for news content, with arbitration to follow if they are unable to reach agreement.
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A thought on charging the social media entities. There has to be an ability to measure a particular social media entity's site attributing the news items from a particular Australian media source.
For example, if there are a million users using Facebook what is the measure of how much news Facebook sources from Macquarie Media, the ABC, Nine Media, AAP, Seven Media and News Corp
To illustrate. If there are 10 million users using Facebook, what proportion of sourced news items are from Macquarie Media/Nine, the ABC, AAP, Seven Media and News Corp such that each media organisation is allocated proportionally a royalty? That is the social media organisation needs to measure (i) how many users are using the news and (ii) the source of news providers and pay a royalty in proportion to the particular media organisation's out of all the other media organisations' stories used by Facebook.
Thank you,
Anthony of exciting Belfield