What is the News Media Bargaining Code?

An open letter is almost always never a good thing. And so is the case recently with Google Australia’s protest of the News Media Bargaining Code (NMBC).

Google’s link to its open letter on the search engine’s homepage.

They are calling upon Australians who use Google Search and YouTube to help provide their support to quash the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) new proposed draft to ensure news media companies are compensated for their journalism, even when Google operates as a free service. The media conglomerate claims that data security is at risk should this deal go ahead.

The Australian media industry has been hit hard lately, particularly with the destruction at Bauer Australia in print divisions. This new proposal by the ACCC means that Google and Facebook would be required to pay for this content created by journos in the Australian news media industry. The ACCC are not providing the figures that they would pronounce as fair, but rather attempting to enter into negotiations of a fair deal for the future of Australian news media. As Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg put it: “Nothing less than the future of the Australian media landscape is at stake with these changes.”

Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance Media president Marcus Strom said that Google’s free ride has to stop. “It is a business model that has literally destroyed newsrooms around the world.

This proposed law is a world first, which will likely dictate how news companies worldwide will proceed with the same issue locally. However, this is going to be a while yet as important negotiations will get underway between all parties here in Australia, with an arbitrator the last deciding step should it get ugly. The media world will be watching on eagerly. 

Google’s open letter is deliberately personal, telling readers “you trust us with your data and our job is to keep it safe. There’s no way of knowing if any data handed over would be protected.” The ACCC came out swinging on August 17th with a response to Google’s open statement and homepage messaging, claiming it contained “misinformation”.

The ACCC’s response to Google’s open letter.

It seems that Google may have jumped the gun slightly, with the ACCC quick to highlight that Google’s own decisions will play a big part in this new agreement in the future. The line to hammer that message home? “If [Google] chooses to do so.”

We’ll be interested to see how or if Google responds and how far they will go to stop the NMBC from passing.

Info partly sourced here.