GOOGLE TO PAY $75 MILLION A YEAR TO CANADIAN MEDIA
The Canadian federal government and Google have reached a historic agreement. The company will pay the Canadian media 100 million Canadian dollars, about 75 million US dollars.
This is a payment for sharing or reusing news content produced by the media on the video platform. The payment will be annual and indexed to inflation.
The Canadian government announced on November 29, 2023 that it reserves the right to review the agreement if more advantageous agreements are generated in other countries.
These payments in Canada are based on the Online News Act, also known as Act C-18, which was passed last June 22 and will come into force on December 19. The law obliges large platforms to reach commercial agreements with the media for the use of their content.
In this regard, another important point that was agreed upon is that Google will pay these resources to a single institution that represents all Canadian media. There will be no individual negotiations by the company.
NO AGREEMENT WITH META
Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, is reluctant to enter into a similar agreement with Canada. Instead of negotiating, the tech company’s response has been to block news for its Canadian users. Meta’s executives claim that the mechanism established by the C-18 law is unfeasible for their company.
The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, declared that Meta’s position is contrary to the responsibilities it must assume before democratic institutions. He criticizes the fact that the company’s social networks allow the dissemination of disinformation, instead of abiding by Canada’s new regulatory framework to provide sustainability to a key sector of society: journalism.
In that country, 450 media outlets have closed their doors since 2008 in the face of a sharp decline in advertising and subscription revenues. Advertising has largely migrated to social networks, which among other factors to attract users are the news, which are generated by newsrooms that, in turn, have to pay the salaries of the journalists who produce them.
Trudeau has said that the agreement “will serve to ensure that journalists, including those in small local media, will be supported for years to come”.
WILL IT BE ENOUGH?
The government had expected Google to pay C$175 million in compensation. However, after three months of negotiations, the figure was reduced to C$100 million.
Media associations have said that while this will be an important support, it was not what they expected. This is what Marla Boltman, advocacy director of Les Amis citizen media, told the AFP agency. She hopes that other support tools will be put in place.
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