The Australian government has increased the levy for big tech organisations that fail to reach deals with local news groups regarding content.
Google, Meta and TikTok in Australia could face a higher levy if they fail to reach a licensing agreement with local publishers.
The Australian government said earlier today that the increased levy comes as part of its News Bargaining Incentive, designed to given news organisation proper compensation for content.
Tech firms will have to pay a 2.5% levy on their digital advertising revenue under the proposed amendments to the existing media bargaining law.
The penalty rate for failing to reach an agreement will be higher than the current 2.25% rate, but it will be calculated using a smaller portion of its earnings (previously it was.
This would apply any firm that has “significant” search and social media services in Australia with local revenue exceeding AUD$250 million (roughly £130m). This brings TikTok, Google, and Meta inside the scope, as well as LinkedIn, as the exclusion for professional networking sites has been removed.
AI companies are not included in the scheme, despite posing a serious challenge for publishers that have their content scraped and uploaded to LLMs without compensation or credit.
Funds raised will be redirected into the media industry to support local journalism.
Assistant treasurer Daniel Mulino confirmed that tech firms should offer compensation to the publishers which provide them with content through news.
“That will mean that we have a news production ecosystem that is more sustainable going forward,” he said. “This reflects the fact that what we are really trying to target here is the part of the business that uses the news.”
Meta previously attempted to sidestep the regulations by removing and de-prioritising news in an effort to avoid paying for content – but the Australian government responded by applying the scheme to all major tech platforms, regardless of whether they hosted news or not.
Tech firms have threatened to pull their platforms from Australia, but Mulino remains “confident” that they would not walk away from the region.
