Canadian Heritage committee  Good morning, and thanks for having me. It's a privilege to speak to a Canadian audience, and I wish I could testify in person. On behalf of the News/Media Alliance, a collection of news publishers, I have worked extensively on companion legislation to Bill C-18 in the United

Canadian Heritage committee  The current version wisely introduces baseball-style arbitration, guarantees that publishers of all viewpoints are eligible to participate in negotiations and imposes a size limit—incorrectly, in my view—to focus support on small and local outlets. My last point is that a more

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't give much thought to it. In fact, I've studied the issue through surveys as to how much value is being created by news publishers collectively to the individual platforms. The answer comes out to something in the billions of dollars, at least in the United States. It's pr

Canadian Heritage committee  I think this is a serious issue, but it might fall outside of the question we're talking about today, which is how do we come up with a structure in which we can solve a market failure and compensate news publishers for the value they're creating for the platforms. I do think the

Canadian Heritage committee  That's right, and that's exactly the question we're trying to get at in these valuation studies: What brought you there? What are you doing in the search? Is it news or something else? We can perform surveys and we can use other tools to try to estimate, as best we can, the val

Canadian Heritage committee  Oh, yes. Facebook has made similar threats to publishers here. You know, what's ironic about this is that we're arguing that there's a power imbalance, that Facebook has monopsony power. When they behave this way with these bullying tactics, basically threatening to shut down t

Canadian Heritage committee  I apologize. I didn't hit the interpretation button until the very end of that question, which I now see is aimed at me. Is it possible that I could have that back?

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, in terms of quality, what we're trying to figure out in our studies is this. We ask people who are on the various platforms why they're there, what they are consuming and what brought them there in the first place. I think quality is going to be picked up in these two diffe

Canadian Heritage committee  I don't think there should be a certification that's created by the platforms. I think there should be criteria under which the bill rules out certain participants from enjoying the proceeds. That would be the first filter. The second filter that I'm going to strongly suggest i

Canadian Heritage committee  This remedy would not affect the free Internet. Here is why: Google is not going to suddenly start charging consumers for search because it now has to pay a lump sum transfer to newspapers once a year. That lump sum transfer is not going to enter their pricing calculus. It woul

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, it's possible that the very largest publishers will be able to extract some payments unilaterally, but that's not what the bill is about. That's not what we're trying to do. What we're trying to do is breathe life into journalism writ large, including these community newspa

Canadian Heritage committee  That's right. They're going to join the coalition. They're going to show up as one cohesive unit at the bargaining table. This is assuming that we don't reach a voluntary negotiation. I'm very skeptical that we will. There's a period of time in which a voluntary negotiation take

Canadian Heritage committee  I think it's very important. The reason is the dire straits the newspapers are in. Look, if these guys could make it another couple of years, then maybe we could afford to let this roll out for a year. We don't have years. What I would say if I could script it is I think each o

Canadian Heritage committee  Well, I am here as an expert on the U.S. legislation, which I helped craft. I'm trying to impart some experience and some wisdom that I've learned in the process in the U.S. I don't hold myself out as an expert on the Canadian legislation. My understanding is that, on many of the

Canadian Heritage committee  Yes. I think it would do the opposite. If you infuse these local newspapers with cash for the first time, this access fee that would be negotiated, I think the very first thing they'll do is turn around and invest in journalists. We've seen this happen in Australia. Second, the