Australia forces Big Tech firms to pay for news or face a 2.25% tax
Australia is introducing new legislation to require Big Tech companies to pay for news content. The proposed News Bargaining Incentive (NBI) would impose a 2.25% levy on local revenues unless commercial agreements are made with news publishers. This initiative follows previous attempts to regulate news funding and aims to support the journalism sector in Australia.
- ▪The NBI requires companies like Meta, Google, and TikTok to pay for journalism they aggregate or reshare.
- ▪If platforms make enough deals with media outlets, the effective tax rate can drop to 1.5%.
- ▪The legislation explicitly excludes AI services from its scope.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Australia is getting serious about making Big Tech pay for news. The country’s government unveiled draft legislation on Tuesday that would require companies like Meta, Google, and TikTok to pay for the journalism they aggregate or reshare, or face a levy on their local revenues. Communications minister Anika Wells said at a press conference today: “People are increasingly getting their news directly from Facebook, from TikTok, and from Google.” The proposed law, called the News Bargaining Incentive (NBI), would impose a 2.25% levy on the Australian revenues of the three platforms unless they strike commercial deals with local news publishers. Plus, the more deals they make with media outlets, the less they pay.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at TechCrunch.
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