Google has made a payment of $CAN100 million ($69 million) for the use of news stories from Canadian media outlets on the platform Google. They have been struggling with Canadian news outlets and lost advertising revenue because of Google and Meta. Now, both companies were obliged, according to the Online News Act, to pay huge money to the Canadian Journalism Collective (CJC) to help news media deal with the loss of the use of its content, and then the money would be disbursed to the media companies.
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While Meta has thus refused to comply with the requirement of a CJC and instead blocked Canadian news content on its platforms to avoid paying the collective, Google, as part of the deal, will award 30% out of the $100 million to broadcasters, while the remainder will be divided among news publishers. The President of News Media Canada, Paul Deegan said,” this money would help enhance revenue flows to Canadian newsrooms which would then be able to increase their production of high-quality coverage over democratic institutions”. News Media Canada is the top representative for major news broadcasters and publishers.
The money will be distributed among Canadian news sites by the non-profit CJC. The publishers will get $13,798 per employed journalist, and small outlets will get $17,000 for every full-time journalist. These are small steps for the federal government to use to fight big tech companies in making payments while using Canadian news content. Google, however, receives a five-year exemption from the Online News Act through this agreement.