Canada’s online news legislation only covers Meta/Facebook and Google, say regional broadcasters, and they are calling for it to be expanded to Apple News+ and others.
The Online News Act is Canada’s new law that requires Facebook and Google to share revenues with the news publishers whose work they use. That won’t happen, though, as both Facebook and Google have shuttered their news services rather than pay anything they owe.
According to the National Post, however, a group representing television and radio broadcasters in Canada is asking for the Online News Act to be expanded. The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) wants the law to cover all online news, but it is specifically naming Apple as an example.
“The CAB believes that such services should be scoped into the framework, rather than excluded up front,” said a spokesperson.
“As we’ve said all along, we are open to good and constructive ideas to improve the proposed framework,” said a spokesperson for Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge. “Our goal remains the same of creating fair deals directly between news organizations and tech giants that can and should contribute more.”
It’s not clear whether that estimates includes revenues from Google and Facebook. However, separately, Canadian government officials have estimated that the two firms would be paying a total of $170 million — if they hadn’t pulled out.
