Centre asserts Indian news publishers need to get paid for content

New Delhi: The Centre insisted that the big tech firms need to pay publishers for funnelling news into their search engines and profiting. The government cited the imbalance in the relationship between new publishers and tech companies and said a fair share of revenues should go to creators.

Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Information and Broadcasting Secretary Apurva Chandra said the issue is important for the future of journalism and the financial health of the news industry.

Noting initiatives taken by countries like Australia, Canada, and France along with the EU, Chandrasekhar said the government hopes to address this issue of disproportionate control and imbalance of dynamics between content creation and its monetisation and the power that ad-tech companies and platforms hold today. Several nations have passed legislation to ensure a fair split of revenue between news creators and aggregators.

He added that the structure of the internet is leaving small organisations at a severe disadvantage. The Digital India Act can solve the issue by following a similar solution to the one Australia introduced.

"For the growth of the news industry, it is important that digital news platforms of all these publishers, who are the creators of original content, get a fair share of revenues from the big tech platforms which act as aggregators of content created by others," said Chandra while speaking at a conclave organised by the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) - an umbrella organisation of 17 leading Indian news publishers.