The Senate Judiciary Committee cleared laws that might give information retailers a reprieve from antitrust legal guidelines and permit them to band collectively to barter agreements with tech platforms.
The Journalism Competition and Preservation Act handed in a 15-7 vote.
“We actually share the view that this is not about content. This is about negotiating prices,” mentioned one of many invoice’s key co-sponsors, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN).
She mentioned the purpose of the invoice is to “allow local news organizations to get compensation when major titans, monopolies, like Facebook and Google, access their content. It wasn’t about facilitating negotiations about content.”
She proposed an modification that clarifies that the invoice’s focus is solely on compensation for information retailers, not over content material. That alleviated issues of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) that the laws could possibly be used as a protect “to further censorship.” He in the end voted for the laws.
The invoice creates a “safe harbor” from antitrust legal guidelines for a interval of eight years for newspapers, broadcast stations and digital journalism retailers.
The newest model locations limits on the scale of stories retailers that may collectively negotiate, prohibiting information retailers with greater than 1,500 full-time workers. It would require so-called “gatekeeper platforms” — i.e., Google and Facebook — to barter in “good faith” with the information organizations. The platforms are outlined as these with at the very least 50 million U.S.-based customers or subscribers, or these owned or managed by entities with a market cap of better than $550 billion or at the very least 1 billion month-to-month energetic customers worldwide.
Klobuchar mentioned in a press release after the vote, “Our bipartisan legislation ensures media outlets will be able to band together and negotiate for fair compensation from the Big Tech companies that profit from their news content, allowing journalists to continue their critical work of keeping communities informed.”
An identical invoice has been launched within the House.
Jennifer Huddleston, police counsel for the web business group Net Choice, mentioned in a press release, “Exempting newspapers from antitrust laws will incentivize them to collude in order to control legitimate news and diminish competition,” mentioned Jennifer Huddleston, Policy Counsel for NetChoice. “In an effort to prop-up traditional media, Congress forgets that Americans have more sources of news and views than ever before–because of the internet. Traditional media is increasingly woke and progressive, so we’re disappointed to see Republicans support this bill.”
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