NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Secretary Apurva Chandra said that it is important for big-tech companies to share a part of their revenue with original publishers of digital news.
"For the growth of the news industry, it is important that the digital news platform of all these publishers which are the creators of original content get a fair share of the revenue from the Big Tech platforms which act as an aggregator of the content created by others," he said in a message to the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) conference.
Chandra highlighted that many nations and regions such as Australia, Canada, France and European Union have already taken the initiative through their legislatures and strengthened their competition commissions to ensure a fair split of revenue among the creators of news content and the aggregators.
The government last year had hinted that they may bring some policy changes which would bring changes in the way big tech firms, such as Google, Twitter and Meta, use content produced by local publishers. The changes include sharing revenue for the original content produced by these publications/creators.
The I&B secretary’s fresh statement comes at a time when big tech are slashing their manpower in record numbers to keep their expenses in check.
Chandra also said that post-COVID, there have been issues regarding the financial health of not just the digital news industry, but also the print news industry. "It is clear that if the traditional news industry continues to be negatively impacted, the future of journalism, our fourth pillar, is also hit. Thus, this is a question of journalism and credible content as well," he said.
Chandra said the traditional news industry has a history of service to the nation. "I understand that they have in place adequate systems of checks and balances to ensure that correct and factual news flows out and are a good example of our stated policy of self-regulation," he said.