After passing the law requiring payment of news usage fees
Signed a three-year contract with Murdoch’s News Corp.
Facebook logo. Reuters Yonhap News
Facebook has signed a news contract with Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation (Newscorp) in Australia. This is the first contract issued in Australia after a bill was passed last month to force large digital platform companies to pay royalties when using news, and it is expected to have a major impact on the digital news ecosystem in other countries. Newscorp announced on the 15th that it has signed a contract to provide newspapers and broadcast videos, including the Australian version, to Facebook for three years. We did not disclose the specific terms and amount of the contract. ‘Nine Entertainment’, which owns’Nine Entertainment’, reported that it signed a’Letter of Intent’ to sign a news fee contract with Facebook, which seems to be close to signing the contract. Facebook is also negotiating news contracts with other media outlets. The reason Facebook has no choice but to sign news contracts with Australian media is because of the world’s first passed related laws. At the end of last month, the Australian Parliament passed an amendment to the Competition and Consumer Law 2010, which included mediation to determine the fee for content fee negotiations between news providers and online services failed. The essence of this law is that it allows the government to intervene in the form of arbitration and force payment of news usage fees. Digital platform giants such as Google and Facebook vehemently opposed the passage of the legislation, seeing the aftermath could spread to other countries. In particular, Facebook expressed dissatisfaction overtly last month by taking tough measures to block news sharing in Australia. However, after facing international criticism, it lifted the ban on news sharing. At the time, criticism came from Europe and Canada, as Julian Knight, the chairman of the Digital, Cultural, Media, and Sports Committee of the UK House of Representatives, compared Facebook’s actions to “bullying.” On the 17th of last month, Google, which had pretended to stop search services in Australia, signed a three-year news contract with Newscorp, ahead of Facebook. Two big digital platform companies are in a queue with the Australian government, but they finally raise their hands. Members of the European Union (EU), the United Kingdom and Canada, also reported that there is a move to pursue legislation similar to that of Australia. Facebook and Google are also preparing for changes in the news content environment. Facebook announced last month that it will invest 1 billion dollars (1.3 trillion won) in the news industry over the next three years. Last year, Google also announced that it would spend $1 billion over the next three years by investing in its news app’News Showcase’ and paying for content usage. By Jo Ki-won, staff reporter