Australia’s competition watchdog is reportedly investigating a claim that Facebook has refused a publisher’s request to negotiate a licensing deal, the first major test of the country’s recently passed that that forces the Masters of the Universe to negotiate payment deals with news publishers.
Breitbart News reported in February that the Australian government passed a law forcing tech giants like Google and Facebook to negotiate a payment scheme with news outlets for access to their content — or face arbitration.
Josh Frydenberg, the Australian Liberal party’s deputy leader, stated: “This is a significant milestone. This legislation will help level the playing field & see Australian news media businesses paid for generating original content.”
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) stated that the new law will address “a significant bargaining power imbalance between Australian news media businesses and Google and Facebook.”
However, a new report from Reuters alleges that Australia’s competition watchdog is now investigating a claim that Facebook refused a publisher’s request to negotiate a licensing deal.
The Conversation, which publishes current affairs commentary by academics, alleges that it asked Facebook to begin talks as required under the new Australian law but that Facebook declined without providing a reason.
This will be the first major test of the new law; if Facebook refuses to negotiate license fees with publishers then a government-appointed arbitrator may step in. In a statement responding to Reuters, Facebook’s head of news partnerships for Australia, Andrew Hunter, said that the company was “focused on concluding commercial deals with a range of Australian publishers.”
Hunter did not respond to questions specifically about the Conversation but said that Facebook was planning a separate initiative “to support regional, rural and digital Australian newsrooms and public-interest journalism in the coming months”, without giving details.
Rod Sims, the chair of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), said in an interview: “If Google’s done a deal with them, I can’t see how Facebook should argue that they shouldn’t… The question of designation might need to come into play,” he added using the term for assigning an arbitrator.
Read more at Reuters here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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