The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) held a meeting with online news publishers to discuss the revenue-sharing mechanism, on June 12. Chaired by I&B Secretary Sanjay Jaju, the meeting saw participation from the Digital News Publishers Association (DNPA) and other government departments including Competition Commission of India (CCI) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity).
The DNPA had petitioned the government to evolve a revenue sharing mechanism with tech companies including Meta and Google that aggregate and distribute the content created by publishers and have monetization models built on the work of others.
DNPA, an apex body of India’s top 18 news publishers, has argued that Big Tech’s “unfair” practices have been adversely affecting the business of news publishers. It has been in a constant dialogue with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology to push for introducing changes in the amendment to existing IT rules.
Read More: DNPA seek regulatory amendments for fair compensation and revenue sharing in India
In the past, Sujata Gupta, Secretary General at DNPA, said they are advocating for a timely amendment to existing IT rules in India, to incorporate a bargaining code to ensure fair revenue sharing between major tech corporations and digital news publishers. The amendments, according to her, would guarantee an opportunity to ensure that any company or Large Language Model (LLM) that uses data also appropriately compensates the sources providing the content or data.
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Globally, the fight for a fair revenue share has been ongoing, with countries like Australia, France, Canada and many other actively participating in finding regulatory resolutions to fix the imbalance. In contrast, India currently lacks a definitive law or policy facilitating a fair revenue share from major tech corporations.
DNPA, along with the News Broadcasters and Digital Association (NBDA) and the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) jointly lodged a complaint with the CCI earlier this year, pertaining to Google’s perceived conditions related to revenue-sharing agreements and questionable practices in advertisement intermediation services, among others.