Paid news ‘backdown’ may avoid Google exit

TECH giants Google and Facebook have won a series of last-minute reforms to laws that would see them pay for the news they use in Australia following meetings with government officials and the possibility of more “lucrative” deals with media outlets.

Federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg revealed plans on Tuesday to change some of the more contentious provisions in the proposed world-first laws to make them more “workable” for the tech firms, just days after the news bargaining code received approval from a Senate committee.

Experts have labelled the changes a “backdown” but say they could prevent Google from pulling its services from Australia while going further than other countries to ensure media outlets were compensated for their work.

Mr Frydenberg, along with Communications Minister Paul Fletcher, revealed the Government would make a series of “clarifications and technical amendments” to the laws before introducing them to parliament later this week.

The changes come after Seven West Media became the first major Australian outlet to sign up to the project on Monday, reportedly in a contract worth more than

$30 million a year, with further deals tipped to follow imminently.

Swinburne University media senior lecturer Dr Belinda Barnet said the changes represented a backdown from what the ACCC originally proposed to level the playing field between news businesses and tech giants and could avoid setting a worldwide precedent over paying for news in “organic search results”.

“Google got what they wanted,” she said.

“They would pay almost anything not to set a precedent in Australia.”

Despite the backdown, Dr Barnet said small and large publishers could still benefit from deals outside the code, and the Australian laws would go further than the recent court ruling in France that did not leave the door open for regulation outside Google’s own products.