This Bill Would Force Google and Meta to Pay for Journalism

Modeled after Australian legislation, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act would boost small digital publishers

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Bipartisan senators advanced an updated bill today that, if passed, changes how small publishers seek fair compensation from tech giants that make billions off their content.

The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) emboldens publishers to negotiate what’s deemed fair market value for the content they’ve produced and distributed.

When two local newspapers are shuttering every week in the U.S., this bill comes as “an enforcement mechanism or a dispute resolution” for small publishers, according to Danielle Coffey, evp and general counsel at the News Media Alliance trade group.

Facebook and Google’s aggregation threaten the business of local journalism, which has seen a revenue decline of 58% since 2005, per News Media Alliance, and made worse during the pandemic.

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