We don't want the news to be Big Tech's *partners* - we need them to be Big Tech's *watchdogs*. #LinkTaxes and other profit-sharing arrangements between the media and tech cut against the civic energy Stites wants to build.

(You can read more about this - along with policy prescriptions for halting Big Tech's rent-extraction from the news - in "Saving the News From Big Tech," my @EFF white-paper:)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

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#Canada #C18 #LinkTaxes #BigTech #News #Media #Journalism #Meta #Google #TargetedAds: "The link tax laws passed around the world have typically been justified on the grounds that companies such as Google and Meta are are using links drive traffic to news sites, but keeping any profits from advertising in the process. In other words, online advertising means Google and Meta have taken control of the online advertising that used to be the mainstay of news publishers.

As a previous PIA article explained, today’s advertising system is based on constant surveillance of site visitors, but Google and Meta retain most of the revenue. In other words, if C-18 aims to fix the publishing industry’s financial challenges, the solution isn’t introducing link taxes that don’t address the real problem. Instead, news publishers could move to context-based advertising, which respects the privacy of visitors, and doesn’t hand most of the ad revenue to intermediaries like Google and Meta."

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/canadas-new-c-18-link-tax-law/

However, both the EU and the US - as well as Canada and Australia - have focused their news industry legislating on misguided #LinkTaxes, where tech giants are required to pay license fees to link to and excerpt the news. This is an approach grounded in the mistaken idea that tech giants are stealing media companies' content - when really, tech giants are stealing their *money*:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/18/news-isnt-secret/#bid-shading

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US Link Taxes Won’t Be Part of Year End “Must Pass” Legislation

The threat of link taxes in the US has been averted as they won't be part of the year end "must pass" bills.

Canada is certainly not alone when it comes to debating the completely insane idea of link taxes. In the US, there is a bill known as the JCPA (or Journalism Comp

https://www.freezenet.ca/us-link-taxes-wont-be-part-of-year-end-must-pass-legislation/

#Copyright #EFF #JCPA #LinkTaxes #Media #NDAA #US

It also largely answers the case for #LinkTaxes (pseudo-copyright systems that let giant media companies decide who can link to them and charge for the privilege).

The underlying case for link taxes, snippet taxes, etc, is that Big Tech is stealing the news media's content (by letting their users talk about and quote the news), when the reality is that Big Tech is stealing their *money* (through ad-fraud):

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-isnt-stealing-news-publishers-content-a97306884a6b

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