Digital News Publishers Lobby For Revenue Sharing With Google, Meta In Government Meeting

The government held talks with online news publishers and other related departments on Wednesday regarding the demand of the Digital News Publishers Association. The meeting revolved around the revenue sharing mechanism with big tech firms such as Google and Meta for using their content.

The meeting was headed by Information and Broadcasting Secretary Sanjay Jaju. The representatives from the DNPA and other government departments were also present.

The DNPA had petitioned the government to evolve a revenue sharing mechanism with big technology companies such as Google and Meta that aggregate and distribute content created by others and monetise the internet traffic generated in the process.

According to the DNPA, such practices have been adversely affecting the business of the digital news publishers.

Australia and Canada have taken legal steps that make big technology companies pay the local news publishers for the content generated by them and used by 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 been insisting that the media houses in India receive their fair share of revenue from the big tech companies for the content they publish.

(With inputs from PTI)