Tag: Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill

A message to Google from the good people of New Zealand: ‘Sod off’

New Zealand should play Google at its own game. The country should boycott its search engine and move en masse to the many alternatives.

Last Friday major media companies revealed that Google had given notice that it would remove links to New Zealand news and ditch the agreements it has with them if the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill is passed by our Parliament in its present form.

That would amount to an effective blackout of the news content it exploits on a daily basis in a way that users have come to rely upon.

Google’s parent Alphabet wishes to continue that exploitation unencumbered by laws and regulation and has already played hardball by threatening the governments of Canada and Australia over legislation similar to that proposed here. Facebook’s owner Meta went further and instituted bans. This is online bullying on a monumental scale.

We may see some of the resulting frustrations vented in a report on internet searches from the Australian Competitions and Consumer Commission that was due to be presented to the federal treasurer last Monday, but which has yet to be publicly released.

Let’s not wait to register our refusal to be intimidated. Let’s show our utter disdain for American corporate bullying by telling Google to sod off. In other words, let’s vote with our fingers. No, not that well-known gesture, but a nationwide campaign to switch now to the likes of Yahoo! and Microsoft Bing. Continue reading “A message to Google from the good people of New Zealand: ‘Sod off’” →

Digital Bargaining Bill should be consigned to the flames

The Fair Digital New Bargaining Bill should be placed on a figurative Viking funeral ship, pushed out into the water, and set on fire.

It was reported back to the House last week by a select committee that was unable to agree on amendments which, in the main, were bolted on to take account of generative AI. The impact of artificial intelligence had been entirely absent from the original bill.

The inability of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee to agree on amendments probably owes more to the genesis of the proposed legislation – it was introduced by the Labour-led coalition government shortly before the last election – than to the substance of the changes. ACT, for example, is opposed to the bill as a whole, arguing “the risks may outweigh the benefits”. Labour hints that present Government members on the committee failed to give it the necessary support.

The way in which the bill was reported back to the House means it may have been fatally wounded, but it is not dead yet. It was reported back without amendment and with the admission the committee could not agree. However. a version with the amendments that had been considered was appended and the committee said that, if Parliament, decided to proceed, it should consider them.

There are several reasons why the House should simply let the poor thing die in peace. Continue reading “Digital Bargaining Bill should be consigned to the flames” →

Politicians must get the message: Journalism is facing an extinction event

A publisher giving evidence before a select committee last week on the state of New Zealand’s media used a phrase that sent an icy chill down my spine: An extinction event.

James Frankham, publisher of the widely acclaimed New Zealand Geographic was echoing the words of New Yorker magazine, but his use of that phrase brought it home to this country with a resounding thud.

He was one of a succession of media representatives appearing before the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee, which is considering the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. Each of them painted a grim picture of the future of journalism if new ways are not found to pay for the production of news and its derivatives.

Days before the hearing, New Yorker had published an article headed “Is the media prepared for an extinction-level event?” It chronicled massive layoffs in the American media – 2681 last year and an accelerating number already this year – and quoted a January newsletter by media consultant Matthew Goldstein in which he said: “I see a potential extinction-level event in the future.”

He was adding the impact of artificial intelligence integrated search to the media’s existing woes. AI-integrated search, rolled out by Google, answers queries without referring users to outside websites. In other words, even the limited benefit that news sites have had in the past are about to be lost.

The article was accompanied by an illustration of a meteor racing towards Earth, with writhing dinosaurs meeting their end. The use of that extinction stereotype was unfortunate. We are not talking only about the death of legacy media like newspapers – the so-called dinosaurs. We are facing the death of journalism itself. It is more helpful to remember that there have been five extinction events in Earth’s history. The end of the dinosaurs was the fifth, and some argue that humankind is now causing the sixth. Continue reading “Politicians must get the message: Journalism is facing an extinction event” →

Submission: Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill

Yesterday the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Select Committee heard submissions on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill. I made a written submission on the bill, which proposes a system under which New Zealand news organisations could negotiate with social media and search platforms for compensation for the use of news content. Here is my submission:

My name is Gavin Peter Ellis. I am a media researcher and consultant. I hold a doctorate in political studies and am an honorary research fellow at Koi Tū: Centre for Informed Futures at the University of Auckland. I have a background in news media stretching back more than fifty years.

I wish to make the following submission on the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill.

The introduction of the Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill follows the adoption of measures by Australia and Canada to bring some balance to a playing field tipped on its end by the immense power of Alphabet (Google) and Meta (Facebook).

A Cabinet Paper on the New Zealand proposal stated: “The overwhelming feedback from the New Zealand media sector has been that in all respects of their commercial dealings with Google and Meta, news media organisations must accept ‘take in or leave it’ terms that are weighted in favour of the platforms. This inherently limits news media companies’ ability to negotiate about what is a fair return for their investment in news content.”

From my knowledge of the relationship between the platforms and New Zealand media, I would endorse this assessment but would add that there are some media entities with which the platforms simply refuse to engage. This is in spite of the fact that material produced and paid for by these entities is appropriated for use on the platforms.

The Cabinet paper also noted New Zealand companies had no ability to negotiate over issues such as changes to algorithms that affect the distribution of content. Since the paper was tabled, Facebook has, in fact, changed its algorithm affecting New Zealand news, resulting in a drop in page views across our news media.

The Bill proposes a bargaining code but there are alternatives that would be both more robust and would more accurately reflect the impact that search and social media platforms have had, and will continue to have, on vital news media services here.

Those alternatives include a levy on the New Zealand revenue of multinational digital platforms to produce a pool of funds to be distributed equitably to news media.  A ring-fenced revenue tax would nullify the platforms’ profit-minimising strategies in selected jurisdictions, such as New Zealand.

I submit that the alternatives should be preferred above attempts to strengthen the bargaining position of New Zealand media, simply because the power imbalance between the parties is too great and no agreements will reflect the relative impact on each party.

Search and social media platforms have gained such power that anything less than an impost on their commercial activity is unlikely to benefit the diverse forms of New Zealand news media, either sufficiently or equitably.

At the core of the proposed law is a framework for negotiation between the digital platforms and news media entities. The framework sets out timelines on negotiation, mediation, and final offer arbitration if required. There are definitions of what types of digital platform would be captured by the legislation. Unlike the Australian law, where a government minister designates which platforms will be included, the New Zealand proposal (and the similar Canadian law) adopts a catch-all approach from which a platform could be exempted if it meets conditions showing it has already significantly benefitted the New Zealand news media sector.

These conditions appear to be subjective, and provide the means by which Alphabet and Meta could seek exemptions despite the fact that, relative to their levels of commercial activity in this country, their settlements have been minimal.

The Bill provides little or no redress for those companies that have already negotiated with the multinationals – from a position of weakness. The proposed law  cannot be used to over-ride existing agreements between the digital platforms and New Zealand news media entities. Nor can it be used to renegotiate the terms of those agreements. The net effect of such provisions is to make the principal powers of the Bill a nullity in respect of some of our most significant media entities.

In my view, while the Bill has good intentions – making digital platforms pay for news content produced by others – it fails in providing adequate means for achieving that goal. Nor does it reflect in any way the need for a form of reparation. For years, these platforms have benefitted from content without payment and have decimated the business models of news producers performing civic and social functions that the platforms do not. They have both an obligation and the means to make reparations.

Neither goal will be met by a ‘bargaining framework’.  Implicit in such an arrangement is good corporate citizenship but that has not always been evident in the actions of the platforms. When Canada passed its C-18 Law, Facebook responded by blocking Canadian news links, an act that Canadian Minister of Heritage, Pascale St-Onge, called “irresponsible and unreasonable”. A review of the Australian law after the first year of operation included a request that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission investigate whether bargaining power imbalances still exist.

Nothing in the Bill relates to a newer threat to the ownership of news content. Generative AI depends on existing data from which to construct its new ‘realities’. A significant element of that data is found on the websites and in the archives of news media. Nothing in the Bill provides redress for news media for the ‘scraping’ of their content by AI engines, the most powerful of which are likely to be owned by the platforms at which the Bill is aimed. It is a serious omission, although I acknowledge it is one that may be redressed through other legislation.

The financial state of the New Zealand news media gives cause for serious concern. That state is due in no small part to the actions and attitudes of multinational digital platforms that are immensely powerful and immensely wealthy.

The only way in which that power and wealth can be met on anything approaching equal terms is to employ undeniable sovereign power – in this case, the right of an elected government to impose taxes on business activities within its jurisdiction.

I submit that the Bill should be rewritten to reflect such determination, or that it be replaced by a new Bill that does so. The result – a sovereign fund to sustain democratically and socially significant journalism – could be the difference between a healthy civic environment and democratic deficit.