Australia introduces new laws to compel tech giants to pay for news

The Australian government has introduced two new pieces of legislation, the News Bargaining Incentive and the News Journalism Payments bills, to compel large digital platforms to compensate news organizations for their content.

These laws aim to close loopholes in the previous News Media Bargaining Code, which allowed major tech companies to avoid payments by simply removing news content from their services. Under the new framework, large social media and search companies with Australian digital advertising revenue exceeding $250 million—likely including Google, Meta, and TikTok—must enter commercial agreements with at least eight eligible Australian news businesses.

To encourage these deals, the government is offering significant offsets. If a platform strikes a deal, the charge it would have otherwise paid is offset by 150%, rising to 200% for agreements with small or medium-sized news businesses. If companies fail to reach sufficient agreements, they will be required to pay a charge equal to 2.5% of their Australian digital advertising revenue. These funds will be distributed through the News Journalism Payment Scheme to support the production of core news content that informs public debate and democratic decision-making in Australia.