Australia has drafted its News Media Bargaining Code. Google and Facebook will have to pay for the news content. This draft will be amended after discussions — there would be insistence on lump sum payment rather than on per click basis. The draft would serve as a useful template for revenue sharing between online platforms and news publishers.

Huge ad revenues are currently enjoyed by the Big Tech firms leaving the media high and dry, the content of which is used by them. It is a specious argument that the Big Tech brings these sites additional traffic. In fact, they monetize the traffic. Media houses gather news at great cost, and edit it and curate it. It is an expensive and painstaking process. Big Tech skims off the cream for their benefit.

France adopted EU copyright rules. Google has, therefore, stopped displaying news content which otherwise would make it liable to pay royalties to the media. Google has been compelled by the French competition watchdog to reach an agreement with the publishers so as to pay them for news content.

India has lessons here. It should work out the sharing of revenue between the Big Tech and the media.