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OTTAWA – The CRTC is giving its greenlight to a $100 million payment to Canadian media outlets from web giant Google with an exemption from the Online News Act.
Under the Liberals’ online news act, web giants like Google are required to make payments to news companies for the news content that appears on their sites, unless they reach a deal in advance.
Google proposed a $100 million annual payment to news publishers, rather than be subject to the act, while Facebook parent company Meta pulled all news from its websites to avoid having to make any payments under the legislation.
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Google is distributing its funds through a group called the Canadian Journalism collective. It presented its proposal to the CRTC earlier this year and the CRTC granted the company a five-year exemption on Thursday.
Postmedia, the National Post’s parent company, stands to receive a significant share of the $100 million.
News Media Canada, an industry group, applauded the CRTC decision. Paul Deegan, the group’s president and CEO said payments like this will ensure good quality news remains in Canada.
“It guarantees publishers receive fair compensation from platforms, which benefit greatly from the fact-based, fact checked content our journalists produce,” he said in a statement. “We now call on Meta, whose platforms are more valuable with real news produced by real journalists, to follow Google’s socially responsible lead.”
Google will have 60 days to give the first $100 million to the journalism collective, which will then distribute the funds.
National Post
rtumilty@postmedia.com
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