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The News/Media Alliance (NMA) represents the most trusted publishers in print and digital media based in the United States, from small, local outlets to national and international publications read around the world. Every day, these publishers invest in producing high-quality creative content that is engaging, informative, trustworthy, accurate and reliable. In doing so, they not only make significant economic contributions, but they also play a crucial role in educating, upskilling and informing our communities, building our democracy and economy, and furthering America’s economic, security and political interests abroad.

Introduction

As generative artificial intelligence (GAI) technologies become more prevalent, our membership believes these new tools must only be developed respecting journalistic and creative content, in accordance with principles that protect publishers’ intellectual property (IP), brands, reader relationships, and investments. The unlicensed use of content created by our companies and journalists by GAI systems is an intellectual property infringement: GAI systems are using proprietary content without permission. It’s also critical to acknowledge the societal risks associated with the proliferation of mis- and dis-information through GAI, which high-quality, original content, produced by skilled humans and trusted brands, can help to combat.

GAI developers and deployers must negotiate with publishers for the right to use their content in any of the following manners:

• Training: Including publishers’ content in datasets and using it for GAI system training and testing.
• Surfacing: The serving of publishers’ content in response to user inputs, possibly including a cover note generated by the GAI system of what is contained in the surfaced content.
• Synthesizing: Summaries, explanations, analyses etc. of source content in response to a query.

This document highlights the overarching principles that must guide the development and use of GAI systems as well as the policies and regulations governing them. These principles are founded on our understanding of these systems and technologies as they are currently used – and may therefore be amended as these technologies and uses develop – and apply equally to all publisher content, whether in text, image, audiovisual or any other format.

AI Principles

Intellectual Property

Developers and deployers of GAI must respect creators’ rights to their content. These rights include copyright and all other legal protections afforded to content creators and owners, as well as contractual restrictions or limitations imposed by publishers for the access and use of their content (including through their on-line terms of service). Developers and deployers of GAI systems—as well as legislators, regulators and other parties involved in drafting laws and policies regarding GAI—must maintain an unwavering respect for these rights and recognize the value of creators’ proprietary content. GAI developers and deployers should not use publisher IP without permission, and publishers should have the right to negotiate for fair compensation for use of their IP by these developers. Professional journalism is particularly valuable due to its reliability, accuracy, coherency and timeliness, enhancing GAI system outputs and improving perceptions of system quality. Absent permission and specific licenses, GAI systems are not simply using publishers’ content, they are stealing it.

Use of publishers’ IP requires explicit permission. Use of publisher content by GAI systems for training, surfacing and synthesizing is not authorized by most publishers’ terms and conditions, and authorization for search should not be construed as an authorization for uses such as training GAI systems or displaying more content than contemplated for or as used in traditional search.  GAI system developers and deployers should not be crawling, ingesting or using publishers’ proprietary content without express authorization; requiring publishers to opt out is not acceptable. Negotiating written, formal agreements is therefore necessary.  Industry standards should be developed to allow for automatic detection of permissions that distinguish among potential uses of crawled or scraped content.  These standards and usage agreements can also address other issues such as attribution, monetization, responsibility, and derivative uses.

Compensation agreements must account for harms GAI systems may cause publishers and the public. GAI system surfacing and synthesizing are providing much more proprietary content and information from the original sources than traditional search and often provide little or no attribution, and will exacerbate the growing trend toward zero-click, reducing or even eliminating value for publishers. GAI systems use publishers’ proprietary content to generate outputs that may replace their role in the consumer/information provider relationship. In addition to reducing traffic, this harms publisher brands that have taken years, decades, or even centuries to build.

Copyright laws must protect, not harm, content creators. The fair use doctrine does not justify the unauthorized use of publisher content, archives and databases for and by GAI systems.  Any previous or existing use of such content without express permission is a violation of copyright law. The Section 1201 triennial rulemaking process should not be used to allow for the bypassing of content protections for GAI development purposes. Exceptions to copyright protections for text and data mining (TDM) should be narrowly tailored to limited nonprofit and research purposes that do not damage publishers or become pathways for unauthorized uses that would otherwise require permission.  The U.S. also has made international law commitments in this area that protect its IP-based businesses across multiple sectors and these must be upheld in its approach to AI.

There is an existing market for licensing publishers’ news content. Valuing publishers’ legitimate IP interests need not impede GAI innovation because compensation frameworks (for example, licensing) already exist to permit use in return for payment. GAI innovation should not come at the expense of publishers, but rather at the expense of developers and deployers.  Publishers encourage the use of efficient ways to license through standard-setting organizations that can facilitate efficient training of GAI systems.

Transparency

GAI systems should be transparent to publishers. Publishers have a right to know who copied our content and what they are using it for. We call for strong regulations and policies imposing transparency requirements to the extent necessary for publishers to enforce their rights. Publishers have a legitimate interest in determining what content of theirs has been and is used in GAI systems. Using datasets or applications developed by non-profit, research, or educational third parties to power commercial GAI systems must be clearly disclosed and not used to evade transparency obligations or copyright liability.

GAI systems should be transparent to users. Direct relationships between users and publishers are critical for the sustainability of the news media and informational content sector. Surfaced and synthesized outputs should connect, not disintermediate, users with publishers. Members of the public should know the source of information that may affect them.  Generative outputs should include clear and prominent attributions in a way that identifies to users the original sources of the output and encourages users to easily and directly navigate to those products, as well as to let them know when content is generated by GAI. Transparency into GAI systems can also help prevent misuse and the spread of mis- and dis-information. Similarly, it enables the evaluation of GAI systems for unintended bias to avoid discriminatory outcomes.

Accountability

Deployers of GAI systems should be held accountable for system outputs. GAI systems pose risks for competition, the integrity of news and creative content, and for public trust in the journalistic and creative content. This is aggravated by the ability of AI applications to devalue publisher brands by generating content that attributes false or inaccurate information to publishers who have not published the information and who have processes in place to prevent such publication in the first place. Accordingly, deployers of GAI systems should not be shielded from liability for their outputs—to do so would be to provide deployers of GAI systems with an unfair advantage against which traditional publishers cannot compete and increase the danger to the public and institutions from the unchecked power of this technology.

Fairness

GAI systems should not create, or risk creating, unfair market or competition outcomes. Regulators should be attuned to ensuring GAI systems are designed, deployed, and used in a way that is compliant with competition laws and principles. Developers and deployers should also use their best efforts to ensure that GAI models are not used for anti-competitive purposes. The use of publisher content for GAI purposes without express permission from content owners by firms that have market power in online content distribution should be considered evidence of a violation of competition laws.  Regulators should be vigilant for other anti-competitive uses of GAI systems.

Safety

GAI systems should be safe and avoid privacy risks. GAI systems, including GAI models, should be designed to respect the privacy of users who interact with them. Early indications are that GAI tools will exacerbate trends towards digital platforms collecting large volumes of user data. The collection and use of personal data in GAI system design, training and use should be minimal and should be disclosed to users in an easily understandable manner so that users can make informed judgments about how their data is used in exchange for the GAI service. Users should be informed about, and should have the right to prevent, the use of their interactions with GAI systems for the purposes of training or collection of personal data.  Systems should also be designed in a way that means paywalled and otherwise protected content cannot be exposed (including but not limited to, for example, by membership inference methods).

Design

All of the principles discussed above should be incorporated in the very design of GAI systems, as significant elements of the design, and not considered as an afterthought or a minor concern to be addressed when convenient or when a third party brings a claim.

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Updated September 5, 2022

The News Media Alliance has produced a White Paper, “How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism.”

Download updated White Paper (September 2022) here.

About the White Paper

The White Paper is based on more than a year of interviews and consultations with many Alliance members about their experiences with Google products. It outlines several of the ways in which Google uses news content to its advantage across its products and services. The use of news content through AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), Google Discover, and the Google News app, as well as Search becoming more of a “walled garden” in which publishers and consumers are increasingly forced or encouraged to stay, has been systematically making use of news content to enhance Google’s bottom line. In exchange, because there is little bargaining power, news publishers are not receiving fair value for quality content.

Based on the conclusions reached in the White Paper, recommendations from the Alliance include:

• Antitrust scrutiny through the current investigations by the DOJ and state Attorneys General and remedies that address the abuses and impacts on news publishers.
• Passage of the safe harbor bill, also known as the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act, to allow news publishers to collectively negotiate for better business arrangements with the tech platforms.
• Compensation mechanisms that properly account for the value that platforms receive through original news content provided by established news organizations.

The Alliance has submitted the White Paper to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for its investigation of Google’s anticompetitive behavior.

Resources

Click the links below to download the White Paper and related resources.

White Paper with Graphics:

This visually-friendly version of the White Paper includes seven new graphics created to help explain some of the concepts in the report.

White Paper with Graphics (PDF, June 2020)

Graphics:

Download and share the individual graphics from the White Paper. Corresponding text for each graphic from the White Paper is below.

For use on social media, please credit the News Media Alliance. Click on an image, then right-click and select “Save image as” to download.

PowerPoint Presentation:

Download our presentation (PDF) of the White Paper graphics for your use and sharing.

Download in PPT format (Note: Some fonts may not display properly)

Graphic 1: How Google Dominates the Online Marketplace 

From page 4 of the White Paper: AMP keeps users in Google’s ecosystem while creating several disadvantages for many news publishers – including making it more difficult in some cases to form direct relationships with their readers, reducing some publishers’ subscription conversion rates, limiting the use of interactive features in AMP articles, reducing some publishers’ ad revenues, and impairing their collection of certain user data.

Graphic 2: How Google Comes Between Newspapers and Users

From page 14 of the White Paper: At the most fundamental level, Google has placed itself in the middle of the relationship between the newspaper and its user. The user is no longer visiting the publisher’s website directly, but instead viewing a copy of the article hosted on Google’s servers. Further, Google controls the AMP elements of the format, its functions and capabilities, and encourages users to stay within the search results page, for example, by creating an H-scroll in the Top News carousels that seamlessly moves from one publisher to the next without ever leaving Google. As subscriptions become increasingly important in an era in which digital ad revenues pale in comparison to earlier revenues from print ads, having a separate proprietary format that does not easily foster direct relationships is even more problematic.

Graphic 3: AMP URL API Terms

From page 19 of the White Paper (text on page 18): In our view, the AMP URL API terms of use also amount to exclusionary and anticompetitive conduct. A news publication does not appear to have the ability to acquiesce in the use of its AMP content on Google mobile search, for example, while declining permission for use in the new (and free) Google News app, which may directly compete with a newspaper’s own app or another app licensed by the publisher. Further, the language is sufficiently broad and unclear as to raise the question whether it gives Google the right to use the content for free for other purposes, such as artificial intelligence, that supposedly “improve” the APIs (and may in turn reinforce Google’s market power). Moreover, the terms give Google the right to sub-license use of the content to third parties, including presumably for a license fee. Finally, the license is irrevocable; although a news entity can theoretically stop creating AMP pages for its publication and stop using Google’s AMP URL API (with all its negative consequences), Google’s right to use the content continues indefinitely for all earlier-posted AMP pages.

Graphic 4: The Price of Appearing on Google News

From page 24 of the White Paper: News publishers are required to grant Google vast and unclear rights to use the publishers’ news content. The required grant of rights to Google extends not only to Google News but for all “Google Services” – defined as any products, services or technology developed by Google from time to time. In short, as a price of having their content appear on the regular Google News website, a publisher apparently is not only required to participate in the Google News app, and any future version of the Google News app, but any product or service developed by Google in the future.

Graphic 5: Google: A Walled Garden

From page 29 of the White Paper: For many years, Google Search results consisted of simple blue links with only a headline and very short snippet from an article. Today, Google Search makes heavy use of premier news content, including high quality news photos. Google uses this content to enhance its own brand – especially in an era plagued by fake news – and earns substantial advertising revenues for aggregating content it did not create or fund.

Graphic 6: The Effect of Google’s Walled Garden

From page 30 of the White Paper: One growing concern for the news industry is the current length of snippets from their articles, which often can collectively provide ample information on any news story to satisfy the casual reader skimming the news. Google is able to use its role as the market dominant platform to pressure newspapers into providing “rich snippets” for search. If these rich snippets are not on properly optimized pages (meaning the publisher implemented Google dictated structured data and markup properly, and the images are of requisite quality and size), the newspaper is put at competitive disadvantage. As illustrated by the examples and screenshots detailed below, a second, broader concern is the format and wide range of content presented by Google on today’s search results pages, usually above the traditional headlines and links to news articles – changes which undoubtedly decrease the chances that a user will click on a news link. Many have quoted the stunning statistic that, “In June of 2019, for the first time, a majority of all browser-based searches on Google.com resulted in zero clicks. We’ve passed a milestone in Google’s evolution from search engine to walled-garden.”³⁸ The situation is even more stark on mobile: in the past three years, “[o]rganic has fallen by almost 20%, while paid has nearly tripled and zero-click searches are up significantly. … Today … almost two-thirds [of mobile searches ended without a click.]”³⁹

Graphic 7: Google Assistant Does Not Give Credit to Original Publisher

From page 36 of the White Paper: Google Assistant is but one of the growing “Voice-first” Google platforms.  The Google website states that, “If you search with the Google Assistant, featured snippets may also be read aloud.”⁴² The full extent of this practice is not known, but in a limited review the news publishers have certainly found examples. When Google Assistant provides an audio response, that audio response obviously does not contain any link to the original article.  In short, in that setting, the quid pro quo that supports any fair use defense is absent.

Additional Resources:

Plain White Paper (no graphics) (PDF, September 2022)

Alliance Letter to the Department of Justice (June 18, 2020)

Statement: White Paper Shows Google’s Ongoing Use and Abuse of News Content, Why We Need the Journalism Competition & Preservation Act (September 6, 2022)

Press Release: Alliance Releases New White Paper Outlining Google’s Dominant Market Behavior, Harming of Journalism (June 18, 2020)

For more information:

Please contact Alliance Executive Vice President and General Counsel Danielle Coffey if you have any questions.

The post White Paper: How Google Abuses Its Position as a Market Dominant Platform to Strong-Arm News Publishers and Hurt Journalism appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

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Overview

Provided by Newsgatherers serve a vital role in our communities. Every day, millions of Americans rely on their local newspapers to get the latest information on what is happening locally, nationally, and internationally. Local newspapers not only help to create a sense of community but also form a fundamental part of American life. By keeping government officials and other policy- and decision-makers in check, a healthy local news ecosystem corresponds with lower municipal lending costs, while local and regional newspapers are also often responsible for some of the biggest scoops that affect the national discourse.

Niche publications aimed at certain racial or ethnic groups similarly provide high value to those communities and have been hard-hit by the transition to a Duopoly-dominated advertising marketplace.

Minority-owned news outlets occupy an important place in American journalistic history, and their continued survival – as well as the addition of new outlets – is threatened by the digital platforms’ anticompetitive practices.

This report investigates how the digital Duopoly’s dominance in the digital advertising ecosystem has impacted news outlets owned by and targeting non-white Americans.

Click here to download the report.

Research Report: Minority-Owed Media and the Digital Duopoly

Background

Throughout their history, minority-owned news media have faced economic challenges due to the dearth of advertising and prohibitive printing and distribution costs. While some believed that the Internet would enable minority media to flourish by lowering barriers to entry, the rise of Facebook and Google has created a host of new challenges for all news media.

As eyeballs and advertising dollars have largely moved from legacy print to digital media, the big tech giants have been the biggest beneficiaries, while newspapers, television and billboards have all faced double-digit revenue declines and competition for a smaller share of the advertising pie. The outsize claim on online ad revenue by Facebook, Google and increasingly, Amazon – which rose from 80 percent in 2019 to nearly 90 percent in 20201 – has sparked a number of antitrust lawsuits that allege Facebook and Google constitute a duopoly that is illegally manipulating ad sales. A bipartisan House Judiciary Sub- Committee report found evidence that the tech giants had monopolized the digital economy. “Companies that once were scrappy, underdog startups that challenged the status quo have become the kinds of monopolies we last saw in the era of oil barons and railroad tycoons,” said the report. It further states that the tech giants both run and compete in the marketplace, “a position that enables them to write one set of rules for others, while they play by another, or to engage in a form of their own private quasi regulation that is unaccountable to anyone but themselves.”

The shift has undermined the economic underpinnings of the traditional news industry. Between 2000 and 2015, newspaper ad revenues alone fell from approximately $60 billion to $23 billion, and between 2008 and 2017, newspapers laid off 45 percent of their workforce. During roughly the same period, the 82 percent spike in employment and addition of 6,100 jobs in digital-native newsrooms did little to offset the loss of some 33,000 newspaper jobs.

While the Duopoly has fueled legitimate concerns about its adverse impact on the news media, little attention has been paid to the particular effect the tech giants’ media dominance is having on minority-owned and -operated media. People of color comprise roughly 40 percent of the U.S. population, yet remain acutely underrepresented in mainstream newsrooms that, consequently, often under-report or overlook issues of importance to their communities. After George Floyd’s death, some in major media issued apologies for their historical racial failings, including the editors of the Los Angeles Times, the Kansas City Star and Vogue magazine.

Keep reading

Key points from the report:

– Data for the top 22 Black-focused websites shows that the median audience size of these websites is just under 2 million average monthly unique visitors. Collectively, the median decrease of these websites’ average monthly visitors was about four percent between 2015 and 2016.

– While Black Planet was profitable and poised for growth when [Co-Founder Omar] Wasow left in 2005, he said Facebook, which went public in 2016, was growing ten times faster.

– “Staying competitive would have required substantially more investments to keep up with emergent technology… the dominance of Facebook makes it difficult to replicate Black Planet’s previous success.” – Omar Wasow, Co-Founder, Black Planet

– “The watchdog function of the press is vital,” he said. It’s crazy that Black America – with more than 40 million people – doesn’t have major media.” – Omar Wasow, Co-Founder, Black Planet

– Today, roughly 95% of all web advertising dollars goes to the top 50 websites, and a 2001 Aspen Report on the 15 ad-supported African-American websites showed the rates generally fall below the industry average of $35 CPM.

About the report

American Economic Liberties Project, MediaJustice and News Media Alliance commissioned author, journalist, and professor Pamela Newkirk to conduct extensive research on the history of – and impact of the ascendance of big tech platforms such as Facebook and Google on – minority-owned media and media targeting underrepresented communities. Dr. Newkirk gathered evidence, including research studies and news articles, and conducted phone interviews with Dr. Benjamin Chavis, president and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA); Joel Dreyfuss, former managing editor of The Root; Akoto Ofori-Atta, co-founder and executive editor of Capital B; Mark Trahant, editor of Indian Country Today; and Omar Wasow, Co-Founder of Black Planet.

For more information

Please contact Alliance Executive Vice President & General Counsel Danielle Coffey if you have any questions.

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Asks Copyright Office to amend policies, documents regarding copyrightability of words and short phrases, study need to clarify laws around substantial takings,
systematic use of news content by aggregators

Arlington, VA – On January 5, the News Media Alliance submitted additional comments to the Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, in response to a request for additional comments to assist it in the preparation of the “Publishers’ Protection Study.” The study, requested by Congress last year, will examine the state and effectiveness of current protections for publishers and whether additional protections are desirable and appropriate. The Alliance highlighted the urgency of the situation and the need for swift action to better protect news publishers in both its initial and additional comments.

In this round of comments, the Alliance built upon its original comments, filed on November 23, 2021, with additional recommendations for the Office’s consideration. In addition, the Alliance responded to comments submitted by other groups, as well comments provided during the Publishers’ Protections Study Roundtable, held by the Copyright Office on December 9 and in which the Alliance was represented on all three panels.

In rebutting comments from other groups alleging that the use of news content by online aggregators is fair use or not infringing, the Alliance comments state that such “substantially inaccurate statements… have the effect of obscuring the truth in an effort to circumvent long-established U.S. copyright jurisprudence, as well as case-by-case fair use analysis,” in addition to misrepresenting the nature and extent of the aggregators’ use of news content.

The Alliance also made four more recommendations – in addition to the recommendations made in its original comments – in order to further improve the sustainability of high-quality journalism, including: 1) amending the Copyright Office’s policies and documents regarding the copyrightability of “words and short phrases”; 2) clarifying the law around substantial takings and systematic use of news content; 3) studying the need for sui generis protections for news publishers; and 4) studying the need for further guidance or congressional action with regards to the use of news content for artificial intelligence applications.

Alliance Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Danielle Coffey, said, “While the Constitution is intended to protect creative works, quality journalism is not adequately compensated by aggregators under our current legal system. News publishers make massive investments in reporters and newsrooms, and they must have the ability to exercise their rights and receive a return on that investment, including through the ability of publishers to receive fair compensation for the use of their content online.”

In its initial comments, submitted in November, the Alliance suggested measures to rebalance the existing system to prevent further abuse of news publishers’ online content by the dominant tech platforms such as Google and Facebook.

In those comments, the Alliance asked the Copyright Office to 1) conclude that the reproduction and public display of news content by aggregators is infringing; 2) implement changes to registration practices that would help protect press publishers; 3) look to Article 15 of the European Union (EU) Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (the “DSM Directive”) to help ensure that American publishers benefit from and receive compensation for the consumption of their content in the EU, by adopting strong national treatment provisions in any bilateral agreements with the EU; and 4) endorse the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2021 (JCPA), intended to help address the market abuse of dominant online platforms.

Coffey continued, “The current imbalance in the digital ecosystem caused by the dominant tech platforms poses an existential threat to high-quality journalism. We cannot afford to lose more of the local news publishers that we trust and rely on for critical information about news and events that impact our lives and communities. The Alliance commends Senator Tillis for his leadership in requesting this study, and the Copyright Office for undertaking this important work, and we look forward to working with the Copyright Office to offer insight and data to assist them in suggesting solutions to Congress to address the current problems facing the industry.”

Read the Alliance’s full comments here.

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

The post News Media Alliance Calls on U.S. Copyright Office to Recommend Further Measures to Clarify Law and Policies, Strengthen Publishers’ Existing Rights appeared first on News/Media Alliance.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Arlington, VA – The News Media Alliance and National Newspaper Association, both long-standing newspaper advocacy organizations with Washington, D.C., area offices, have created a joint policy group to assist their members in the newspaper industry with postal issues and public policy.

NNA, founded in 1885 as Newspaper Editorial Association, will take the lead on postal issues, an area of expertise for its entire history. News Media Alliance, whose legacy organization was founded in 1887, will advise NNA on digital publishing policies, on which it has sharpened its expertise since the breakup of the Bell telephone companies in the 1990s.

As part of the agreement, the National Newspaper Association Foundation will open its postal training tools to Alliance members and NNA will assist in case-specific postal problems through its Postal Hotline.

The Alliance will continue to factor in the concerns of community newspapers in its advocacy on important industry issues like the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, and the two groups will form an consultative task force to help the industry to speak with one voice on other critical issues, such as journalism and First Amendment advocacy. The Alliance manages the media industry’s News Media for Open Government coalition, which includes organizations that lobby for government transparency. NNA is a founding member of NMOG.

The agreement’s member-benefits offerings will take effect in January 2022, and will feature training for newspapers and publishers in the use of Periodicals mail. Growing numbers of newspaper publishers are turning to mail delivery for distribution. Advocacy consultation has already begun.

NNA Chair Brett Wesner and Alliance Executive Vice President & General Counsel Danielle Coffey said they saw this agreement as a powerful combination to create efficiency in newspaper industry advocacy and training.

“These are the two organizations that have been the voices for newspapers in Washington for more than a century, NNA representing the smaller newspapers and NMA the larger ones,” Wesner, president of Wesner Publications, Cordell, Oklahoma, said. “The demands and expenses of doing this work have accelerated in recent years and we see that this trajectory is going to continue. It seemed to both of us that we could do a better job if we eliminate duplication and amplify our voices wherever possible.”

“The News Media Alliance is pleased to partner with NNA to help amplify our voice on key shared issues of importance to our members,” Coffey said. “We look forward to collaborating with NNA to help drive important public policy results that will benefit local news publishers, as well as equip our members with resources and training to help navigate the changing postal landscape.”

While NNA and NMA will handle the public policy side, the NNA Foundation’s role will be the third leg of this innovative partnership, bringing a broad educational piece to the table.

“NNA Foundation has been accelerating its newspaper training programs all year,” NNA Foundation President Matt Adelman, publisher of the Douglas (Wyoming) Budget, said. “We have periodic webinars on all sorts of subjects. This agreement will become part of our new Max Heath Postal Institute, whose mission is to make newspapers and printers better users of the mail. NMA’s members will be eligible to join us for this training. We look forward to working together.”

The faculty for the joint training endeavors will be the Washington office and headquarters personnel for NNA and NMA, including Danielle Coffey, News Media Alliance executive vice president and general counsel; Lynne Lance, NNA executive director; Tonda Rush, NNA General Counsel; and Matthew Paxton, publisher of the News-Gazette, Lexington, Virginia, and Bradley Hill, president of Interlink Inc., a postal software company.

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The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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Copyright Office should allow creators to register website content, provide protection against tech platforms exploiting news publisher content

Arlington, VA – The News Media Alliance submitted comments to the Register of Copyrights and Director of the U.S. Copyright Office, Shira Perlmutter, in response to the U.S. Copyright Office’s notice and request for public input to assist it in the preparation of the “Publishers’ Protection Study,” requested by Congress in order to provide a detailed examination of the online problems confronting press publishers, including the nature, scope and severity of the crisis facing the news publishing industry from the unlicensed uses of their online content, and its impact on the continued viability of news publishers to provide the public with important news and information in order to sustain a strong democracy.

In its comments, the Alliance highlights the need for key updates to the existing system to prevent further abuse of news publishers’ online content by the dominant tech platforms such as Google and Facebook.

Facebook and Google currently do not consistently or adequately compensate news publishers for use of their original content. They make millions of dollars off of that content, while also exerting anticompetitive dominance over the digital advertising ecosystem, which news publishers rely on to be able to continue investing in producing high-quality journalism.

According to Pew Research Center, news publisher advertising revenues fell from approximately $50 billion to an estimated $8.8 billion between 2005 and 2020, a reduction of over 80 percent.

The Alliance comments state that, “As the result of the unauthorized and uncompensated taking of headlines, reported and gathered factual data, and portions of news articles (including, for example, ledes) by these [dominant] platforms,” press publishers have lost advertising and subscription revenue which could be used to help fund news content. The platforms, meanwhile, argue that their use of news content is not copyright infringement under the Copyright Act.

Alliance Executive Vice President and General Counsel, Danielle Coffey, said, “Americans are consuming more news than ever, and yet we are facing a crisis in which news publishers across the country are being forced to close because they are not being compensated fairly for use of their original content. The Alliance thanks Senator Tillis for his leadership in requesting this study and commends the Copyright Office for this important undertaking that will highlight this crisis facing the news publishing industry, a critical copyright-based industry that has long benefited publishers, authors, and the news consuming public.”

In its comments, the Alliance recommends that in its study, the Copyright Office should offer “a menu of suggested viable solutions to allow Congress to make informed decisions about any necessary amendments to the Copyright Act, or other federal laws.”

In sum, the Alliance would respectfully ask the Copyright Office to: (1) conclude that the reproduction and public display of news content by aggregators is infringing; (2) implement changes to registration practices that would help protect press publishers; (3) look to Article 15 of the European Union (EU) Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (the “DSM Directive”) to help ensure that American publishers benefit from and receive compensation for the consumption of their content in the EU, by adopting strong national treatment provisions in any bilateral agreements with the EU; and (4) endorse the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act of 2021 (JCPA), intended to help address the market abuse of dominant online platforms.

The Alliance has been vocal in its support of an ancillary copyright and the ability for news publishers to register online content, such as through an ancillary copyright similar to that established in Europe in 2019. The adoption of an ancillary copyright in the United States would help balance the relationship between news publishers and the dominant online platforms and help news publishers get fair compensation for the use of their protected content online.

Earlier this year, Australia passed legislation to require the online platforms to compensate news publishers for the use of their content.

Coffey continued, “Americans cannot afford to lose more of the local news publishers they have come rely on and trust for critical information about news and events around the country and the world, as well as in their backyards, that impact their daily lives. The time to act is now. We must ensure the continued viability of high-quality journalism, which is the solution to combating harmful misinformation, fake news, and hate speech perpetuated via the social media platforms. We look forward to working with the Copyright Office to offer insight and data to assist them in suggesting solutions to Congress to address the current problems facing the industry.”

Read the Alliance’s full comments here.

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Media Contact:
Lindsey Loving
Director, Communications
lindsey@newsmediaalliance.org

The News Media Alliance is a nonprofit organization representing more than 2,000 news organizations and their multiplatform businesses in the United States and globally. Alliance members include print, digital and mobile publishers of original news content. Headquartered near Washington, D.C., the association focuses on ensuring the future of news media through communication, research, advocacy and innovation. Information about the News Media Alliance (formerly NAA) can be found at www.newsmediaalliance.org.

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