Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:FB) will have to pay for the news displayed on their platforms as news organisations will be free to negotiate collectively with the tech giants under proposed amended legislation.
A statement from the US lawmakers said the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act "removes legal obstacles to news organisations' ability to negotiate collectively and secure fair terms from gatekeeper platforms that regularly access news content without paying for its value."
Among the US lawmakers are Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, Republican Senator John Kennedy, and Democratic and Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee.
Computer & Communications Industry Association and NetChoice, two technology industry trade associations that Meta Platform's Facebook and Alphabet's Google belong to, opposed the original version of the bill in March 2021.
News publishers with fewer than 1,500 full-time employees and non-network news broadcasters would be covered by the updated bill, which would enable them to strike better deals with Facebook, Google, and other large platforms.
If the proposed law is implemented, companies such as Alphabet, owner of YouTube, Meta, owner of Instagram, and WhatsApp, as well as firms like Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR), and Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) will be required to compensate newspapers and digital news publishers for using their original content.