Overview
- Australia released draft News Bargaining Incentive legislation that pressures major platforms to strike paid deals with publishers or pay a 2.25% charge on local revenue.
- The scheme targets large platforms by setting revenue and user thresholds and uses 150–170% offsets on payments, with the levy able to drop to 1.5% if enough agreements are reached.
- The rules apply whether or not a platform carries news, remove arbitration from the 2021 model, and allow compliance through deals with only a handful of outlets, reported as few as four.
- Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the measure would raise A$200–250 million for journalists, while other estimates cited in coverage put the take at roughly $144–179 million.
- Meta labeled the proposal a digital services tax and Google argued it already pays publishers and noted exclusions such as Microsoft, Snapchat, and OpenAI, as Australia pivots from its 2021 code that delivered about A$250 million a year before Meta scaled back deals.