The Indian government is in favour of Big Tech companies sharing a portion of their revenue with digital news publishers, according to comments made by the Information and Broadcasting secretary Apurva Chandra. The comments were delivered at a conference organised by the Digital News Publishers Association on January 20, 2023. He added that it was important that platforms of digital news publishers, which are creators of original content, get a fair share of the revenue from the Big Tech platforms for the growth of the industry (both digital and print) whose financial health has been in a precarious state post COVID-19. Chandra was of the opinion that India should take a leaf out of Australia, Canada, France, and the European Union’s book to ensure a fair split of revenue among creators of news content and aggregators. Why it matters: It is significant to note these comments as they indicate the direction that the Indian government intends to take on monetisation of news content in its draft legislations. It has been a long-standing demand of publishers that Big Tech companies should work out revenue-sharing arrangements with them as it is their original content which drives traffic on to their platforms. What were Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s thoughts: It seems like the government hopes to address the issue with the help of Digital India Act which is in the works if we are to go by comments of the Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar at the same conference. “We hope…
