The media hold power to account but no business can keep producing without being paid The government’s news bargaining incentive (NBI) consultation paper is welcome but it has taken too long to get to this point, the envisaged scheme is complex and it risks favouring the big tech companies. The background to all this is important. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s digital platform inquiry, which was completed in mid-2019, recommended what became the news media bargaining code (NMBC). The logic was that Google and Facebook, in particular, were benefiting significantly from news content without paying for it. Continue reading...