Newly appointed BJP Rajya Sabha member and former Bihar Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi on Wednesday asked the Centre to make laws so that the tech giants like Facebook and Google are obliged to pay share of their revenue to the original publishers of the content which includes websites of newspaper and digital news sites.
Modi raised the important issue which is likely to impact the future of the traditional media in India in the coming days, through a Zero-hour mention.
“The government must make Google, Facebook and YouTube pay print and news channels for the news content they are using freely. I would urge the government of India that the way they have notified Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code to regulate social media and OTT platforms, they should enact a law on the pattern of Australian Code so that we can compel Google to share its revenue with traditional media,” Modi, who has raised more than 30 questions in the two sessions that he has attended after becoming the RS member, said.
On 25 February, the Australian House of Representative passed the News Media Bargaining Code which obliges Facebook and Google to pay to the original content generator for the news that they will be sharing on their platforms. It also calls for Facebook and Google to commit investing tens of millions of dollars on generating local digital content.