As excitement—and anticipation—of how artificial intelligence will upend the media industry grows, legislation that would let publishers collectively negotiate with tech giants for fair compensation for the use of their content has been reintroduced in Congress earlier in March.
Similar bills have been passed recently in Australia and Canada and have had seemingly positive impacts on publishers’ revenue and newsroom size. Following the year after the Australian bill was passed, Australian newsrooms were paid a collective of nearly $150 million, based on 2022 numbers.
“Those are some quantifiable measurements,” said Danielle Coffey, executive vice president and general counsel of publisher trade body News Media Alliance.
Here’s an explainer of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) and what it means for marketers and publishers.
What is the JCPA?
First introduced in March 2021 by Senate Antitrust Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar, the JCPA circulated in the previous session of Congress but was dropped in a defense-spending bill last December.
“Local news is facing an existential crisis, from ad revenues plummeting and newsrooms across the country closing to artificial intelligence tools taking content,” said Klobuchar at the time. “To preserve strong, independent journalism, news organizations must be able to negotiate on a level playing field with the online platforms that dominate news distribution and digital advertising.”
How does it work?
If passed, the JCPA will let digital publishers, with fewer than 1,500 full-time employees, collectively negotiate with dominant online platforms on pricing. Dominant platforms include companies with at least 50 million U.S.-based users and are owned or controlled by a person with net annual sales or marketing capitalization of over $550 billion, or at least one billion global monthly active users. Naturally, that includes Google and Facebook.
These platforms will be prohibited from retaliating or discriminating against the outlets based on their size or views expressed in their content, according to the bill. If platforms are found in violation, publishers can sue them through a private right of action.