萬國法律事務所

In the digital age, advertising revenues of traditional news media have largely flowed to online platform giants, such as Google and Facebook.  Following Australia's success in forcing Google and Facebook to negotiate advertising prices with local news media, the European Union, Canada, and New Zealand have also demonstrated their intentions to join the fight.  In this regard, Taiwan’s National Communications Commission (NCC) stated that it has requested the relevant units to conduct preliminary research on this issue and to collect cases from other countries.
 
NCC spokesperson Weng Po-Tsung stated that the bases for requiring online platforms to pay for news is different among various countries at present.  For example, Australia, from the perspective of market competition, believes that these Internet giants and traditional media have different negotiation powers.  On the other hand, the "Link Tax" proposed by the European Union in the past, was based on the extension of copyright protections.
 
Weng Po-Tsung also indicated that this issue involves multiple ministries and agencies in Taiwan, including the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Ministry of Culture, and the Fair Trade Commission. However, the scope of the current three laws that regulate radio and television is limited to only radio and television media.
 
NCC has not received further instructions from the Executive Yuan, but internally it has asked the relevant units to collect news articles regarding the practices of various countries in order to gain a preliminary understanding.  NCC will cooperate with relevant agencies to hold discussion in the future.  Regardless of the method adopted, the Government’s goal is to allow the media to obtain reasonable feedback when producing high-quality content.
 
As this issue involves multiple agencies, and as Taiwan’s current laws cannot compel online platforms to pay the media for news content, new laws must be promulgated, and a competent authority must be assigned in order to achieve this goal.