By Brian Fung | CNN
Google has agreed to pay Canadian publishers for their news content, backing down from a high-stakes threat to block all news content produced in the country on its platforms after the tech giant and the Canadian government announced a deal Wednesday to avert the looming crisis.
The agreement resolves tensions between Google and Canada over a controversial law known as C-18 requiring digital platforms to compensate news publishers for their work.
And it is the latest twist in a global debate over the role digital platforms play in facilitating — or stifling — news publishers, particularly small, independent outlets.
Under the announced deal with Google, details of which remain murky because the law’s final regulations have yet to be formally published, the search giant will pay $100 million CAD ($73.5 million US) a year into a fund that will be distributed to publishers. Google’s contributions will be indexed to inflation, the Canadian government said.
In addition, instead of negotiating with individual publishers over payment, Google “will have the option to work with a single collective to distribute its contribution to all interested eligible news businesses based on the number of full-time equivalent journalists engaged by those businesses,” said Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge in a statement.
It was not immediately clear how the collective might function or be governed; a spokesperson for St-Onge didn’t immediately respond to a request...
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