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Media
Money for something
Vincent O'Donnell
Photo: Paul Felberbauer
A war between the social media giants and the Australian government is hotting up. It is all over the government policy favouring a news media bargaining code that would oblige social media platforms pay for the news they source from other media.
Week before last, Google fired a shot across the bow of our ship of state with an ‘experiment’. News Ltd’s Adam Creighton took it rather personally, writing ‘Somehow Google had put me on a list of users of its search engine for whom the ability to find Australian news articles had been removed.’ It was Google’s way of saying ‘you won’t know what you have ‘till it’s gone’.
Then early this week, the Trump administration’s office of the US trade representative, in a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the proposal, describes the code as ‘fundamentally imbalanced’. They went on to suggest that the imposition of an arbiter of last resort ran against the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement that ‘requires Australia and the United States to provide for appeals against administrative or bureaucratic decisions’.
And in a quick follow up, Google’s vice-president, Vint Cerf, Google’s chief internet evangelist, in a submission to the same Senate committee, said the news media bargaining code was ‘deeply flawed’, and ‘a fundamental challenge to the free and open internet’.
He forgot to add it would ‘erode our hugely profitable business model’.
And that is what it is all about: money.
Copyright laws have two key elements: first, compensate creators for their efforts and so encourage more creative output and, second, by striking a balance with costs, encourage the wide use of their creative output.
For almost a century, Australia has been part of an international system that allows media and others to use copyright material with a great degree of freedom. Apart for some free usages like review or criticism, ‘fair dealing’, it operates as a statutory licence based on an annual fee.
Week before last, Google fired a shot across the bow of our ship of state with an ‘experiment’. News Ltd’s Adam Creighton took it rather personally, writing ‘Somehow Google had put me on a list of users of its search engine for whom the ability to find Australian news articles had been removed.’ It was Google’s way of saying ‘you won’t know what you have ‘till it’s gone’.
Then early this week, the Trump administration’s office of the US trade representative, in a submission to the parliamentary inquiry into the proposal, describes the code as ‘fundamentally imbalanced’. They went on to suggest that the imposition of an arbiter of last resort ran against the US-Australia Free Trade Agreement that ‘requires Australia and the United States to provide for appeals against administrative or bureaucratic decisions’.
And in a quick follow up, Google’s vice-president, Vint Cerf, Google’s chief internet evangelist, in a submission to the same Senate committee, said the news media bargaining code was ‘deeply flawed’, and ‘a fundamental challenge to the free and open internet’.
He forgot to add it would ‘erode our hugely profitable business model’.
And that is what it is all about: money.
Copyright laws have two key elements: first, compensate creators for their efforts and so encourage more creative output and, second, by striking a balance with costs, encourage the wide use of their creative output.
For almost a century, Australia has been part of an international system that allows media and others to use copyright material with a great degree of freedom. Apart for some free usages like review or criticism, ‘fair dealing’, it operates as a statutory licence based on an annual fee.
Photo: Kai Wenzeloto
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These days statutory licences covers just about everything from recorded music (where the system started in the 1920s) to photocopying newspaper articles, and copying text book chapters for inclusion in university subject readers.
The use of news created by media outlets and reused by Google, Facebook etc. is an electronic equivalent to compiling a subject reader. It is copying someone else’s creative work to incorporate in your own publication. An annual licence fee could be set in the same way that governments and businesses pay to photocopy material. There are a lot of advantages in this approach. The system is based on long-standing precedents. It operates internationally and is accepted under the rules of FTAs all around the world. It is, for the most part, administered at arm’s-length from government, and is efficient in terms of returns to copyright holders. And it would cover all internet aggregators not just Google and Facebook. |
The present US government and social media platform’s fight-back would be dead in the water if our government had adopted this approach from the start.
So why does the government want to re-invent the copyright wheel? Who knows.
So why does the government want to re-invent the copyright wheel? Who knows.
You can't always get what you want
Vincent O'Donnell
Keith Richards strutting his stuff
FEEDING on demand seems to be the recommended regime for infants, but recent events in the USA suggest that it’s not a good idea for presidents and their devotees, especially when it comes to election results. One has the feeling that doses of deferred gratification in their upbringing would have gone a long way to chasten events of the past few weeks.
But then, if social media tell them to be quiet when the adults are in the room and take away their megaphones, the ultimate transgress has been committed: denying them their God-given freedom of speech.
So we have the bizarre spectacle of the internal stability of a country that considers itself the showcase of western democratic government, being threatened, mostly by a generation who never heard the Rolling Stones' You can’t always get what you want.
But then, if social media tell them to be quiet when the adults are in the room and take away their megaphones, the ultimate transgress has been committed: denying them their God-given freedom of speech.
So we have the bizarre spectacle of the internal stability of a country that considers itself the showcase of western democratic government, being threatened, mostly by a generation who never heard the Rolling Stones' You can’t always get what you want.
Photo: encyclopedia.lexroll.com
But are the social media platforms subject to the First Amendment of the US Constitution, the one that guarantees US citizens freedom of speech?
The social media platforms are like giant private clubs. A huge Mar-a-Lago that everyone may seek to join. Like any club, they have rules, rules not set by those who want to join, just like Mar-a-Lago. Try joining that club if you are a vocal opponent of Trump.
Private clubs say who can join, same with Facebook and Google. In fact, the First Amendment guarantees the rights of a private organisation, even widely used social media, to reject member application and messages, and eject those who don't obey the rules.
That they have become large and omnipresent does not make them common carriers of opinions, though they have chosen to enhance profitability by being pretty free about content, especially given the protection of Section 230 of the quaintly named US Communication Decency Act.
Part of the problem is that Facebook and Google have grown to be among the largest corporations in the world and, for many, an essential element in their daily social and informational intercourse. That is a separate issue, one that most of us have had a role in creating. And by our collective but not co-ordinated or considered actions, these organisations have come to wield huge and near unregulated power. That requires a separate solution to issues of content regulation.
The social media platforms are like giant private clubs. A huge Mar-a-Lago that everyone may seek to join. Like any club, they have rules, rules not set by those who want to join, just like Mar-a-Lago. Try joining that club if you are a vocal opponent of Trump.
Private clubs say who can join, same with Facebook and Google. In fact, the First Amendment guarantees the rights of a private organisation, even widely used social media, to reject member application and messages, and eject those who don't obey the rules.
That they have become large and omnipresent does not make them common carriers of opinions, though they have chosen to enhance profitability by being pretty free about content, especially given the protection of Section 230 of the quaintly named US Communication Decency Act.
Part of the problem is that Facebook and Google have grown to be among the largest corporations in the world and, for many, an essential element in their daily social and informational intercourse. That is a separate issue, one that most of us have had a role in creating. And by our collective but not co-ordinated or considered actions, these organisations have come to wield huge and near unregulated power. That requires a separate solution to issues of content regulation.
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But it goes without saying that when some use social media content to poison the club's public bar of ideas and understandings, especially of the political process, then those who set the club rules have an obligation to stop the poisoning. And that means taking more responsibility for content published on their platforms.
In reality if Trump and his supporters stayed within a cooee of fact and labelled their posts as opinion not truth, they would have a lot less problems with Facebook and Google. But, when folk resist accepting as baseless allegations that 60 courts have found baseless, it also speaks of how profound is the distrust of government, scholarship and media in the US. Happily we are not in that lifeboat yet in Australia, but the US experience stands as a warning to our politicians and the media to improve their game. |
Photo: sciencedirect.com
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DR VINCENT O'DONNELL is a resident of Moonee Valley and has worked in the media since the renaissance of the Australian film industry in the 1970s, as a cinematographer, director and producer in film and television and, more recently, as producer and presenter of the weekly radio program, Arts Alive, for the national Community Radio Network. His academic studies centre on the history, economics and politics of the Australian screen industry. He was also a regular guest on three ABC regional radio networks reporting and commenting on events in the media.
For further information or advertising contact
Alan Davidson (Publisher)
E: davopr@bigpond.net.au
M: 0410 518 034
Alan Davidson (Publisher)
E: davopr@bigpond.net.au
M: 0410 518 034