A California bill that would make Big Tech pay for the news articles that help drive its profits has advanced out of a second legislative committee with bipartisan backing as industry critics ramp up opposition.
Assembly Bill 886, the California Journalism Preservation Act by Assemblywoman Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat, passed out of the Assembly Judiciary Committee unanimously on Tuesday with Riverside Republican Assemblyman Bill Essayli added as a co-author along with Los Angeles Democrat Josh Lowenthal.
“I don’t believe in corporate welfare, I don’t believe in transferring wealth,” Essayli said at Tuesday’s Judiciary Committee hearing. “But I also don’t believe in unjust enrichment. And I do think Big Tech is being unjustly enriched off the backs of journalists.”
The bill proceeds next to an Assembly floor vote, which hasn’t yet been scheduled but must occur by June 2.
Wicks’ bill follows the December collapse in Congress of a federal bill with similar goals, the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act, carried by U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, a Minnesota Democrat, and John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican.
Sponsored by the California News Publishers Association, to which the Southern California News Group and its peers at the Bay Area News Group belong, AB 886 would require internet platforms to use binding arbitration to determine the percentage of advertising revenue to compensate news organizations for their content. Australia and Canada have passed similar laws.
The bill is backed by a number of print and broadcast news organizations. But in addition to its chief targets — Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Facebook — it is opposed by the ACLU of California, the California Chamber of Commerce, California Taxpayers Association, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and some online news organizations, including CalMatters.
Matt Schruers, president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, whose members include Meta,…
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