Govt initiates steps for revenue sharing between digital publishers, big tech firms

New Delhi: The central government has taken steps to develop a policy concerning internet companies compensating media organisations for utilising the latter's content. As a preliminary measure, Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sanjay Jaju chaired a meeting yesterday, which included Digital News Publishers Association's (DNPA) representatives and other government departments.

The DNPA urged the government to develop a revenue-sharing mechanism with with big tech companies, such as Google and Meta that aggregate and capitalise on internet traffic generated by external content. These companies use and monetise content created by others.

According to the DNPA, such practices have been adversely affecting the business of digital news publishers. Australia and Canada have taken legal steps that make big technology companies pay local news publishers for the content they generate and use on the platforms linked to such mega firms.

The meeting convened by Jaju was for understanding the issues raised by the DNPA in their communication to the government about evolving a consensus on a legal framework required to address the issues of "imbalance of bargaining power, unfair competition and sharing of advertising revenue between technology companies/ intermediaries and Indian digital news publishers."
The DNPA, an umbrella organisation of India's top 18 news publishers, has insisted that the media houses in India receive their fair share of revenue from the big tech companies for the content they publish.
(With PTI Inputs)