Indian MP calls for Australian-style pay for news laws

India may be on the way to adopting Australia’s legislation that compels Facebook and Google to pay local news publishers or face forced arbitration. Sushil Kumar Modi, a member of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party who sits in the Rajya Sabha, India’s upper house, yesterday suggested India follow Australia’s lead – and added …

[Anonymous Coward]

`Hmmm....

'The Register hopes they consider Australia’s plan carefully, as while it compels digital giants to pay publishers it does not require the money to be spent on anything in particular. And Australia’s original plan was to ensure that public interest journalism cold be put on a sustainable financial footing.'

I've never had a response in the comments to my requests to allow me to pay El Reg for an ad free version.

I definitely will pay you for an ad free version if you provide a mechanism for it, and I suspect many people of this parish would do the same.

You have a readership that will both block ads and be willing to pay you for the good tech journalism you provide.

C'mon, make it happen.

[katrinab]

Just one point here

If there are news items on YouTube, it is because either:

The news channel has chosen to publish their work on YouTube, in which case they get AdSense revenue, and if they don't like the rates, they could publish it on a different platform. They can also include their own ads in the video. Many of them do, and it generally pays a lot more than AdSense.

Or, someone else is using clips of their work in their own channel, in which case:

- it is either fair-use commentary on the work in question,

- it has been legally licensed from the publisher, or

- the publisher has a way to have the work taken down, the same one that music publishers seem to be mostly happy with.

So I don't really see what the problem is.

[Zippy´s Sausage Factory]

Re: Just one point here

The problem is that politicians think it'll be popular AND raise tax revenues.

Big players like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter gripe and moan but also realise that this very much raises the bar for any newcomer trying to compete with them, so while they don't like paying, they feel it's a bit like a protection racket and they're being protected.

[Michael Wojcik]

This is outrageous!

I cannot believe Australia is trying to muscle in on the USA's lucrative stupidity-export market. They'll regret it; our stupidity reserves are huge.