This time, i think big tech may be right

But then, when your business model is at risk, it's easier to find a scapegoat than to accept the responsibility on your shoulders.

How does the news media bargaining code work?

So how does the scheme work, and what should the arrangement be? Essentially the Morrison Coalition government, under pressure from legacy media, passed the Treasury Laws Amendment (News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code) Act 2021 requiring them to negotiate a fee for news items that appear on their websites.

Not all news, but if they touched them in any way, even to promote them in the feed of someone who's shown interest in the subject matter of the news clip, then they are covered by the Act.

If the parties fail to agree, the government can declare them a "designated digital platform" and arbitrate a settlement between them and the "news business."

Up until that legislation, digital platforms were covered by standard copyright law. This meant that if they reproduced more than a certain amount of a news business's material they would need permission, which would probably involve a royalty fee.

How much they could reproduce and not need copyright clearance is difficult to define, just as it is when a journalist quotes from someone else's writing, but it certainly should be more than the snippet of news that is generally produced on most social media sites.

Indeed, the publishers more or less settle the question of what is reasonable by having tags in their articles telling social media what parts to reproduce.

Why do publishers do this? Well, the way the game used to work was that news businesses were eager to have references to their articles on social media as people would click on the link and it drew a larger audience, including some new readers.

Think of search engines and social media as being the newsagents of the online era. They displayed news in their "shops" which some people would pick up and buy.

The search engines and social media didn't reproduce the whole of an article, and sell advertising from it, they reproduced enough to attract a reader to click through.

They gained their reward by being able to sell advertising space on the same page on their digital platform, and the news business gained by having more interactions on their site where they could sell advertising and subscriptions.

A high school student looks at her phone while waiting to be picked up in Albany, Western Australia, on Oct. 17, 2023. (Susan Mortimer/The Epoch Times)