Link Tax Piggybacked to US NDAA
canopic jug writes:
Several overseas sites are reporting on the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) which has been wending its way through US congress. It has now been attached to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act as a rider, thus bypassing an actual democratic process. There has been precious little coverage domestically and one of the few to domestic sites to cover it, Techdirt, is where Mike Masnick asks directly, whether it is possible to get fair coverage of the link tax bill if the organizations covering it are the main beneficiaries?
We've been covering the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), which is a blatant handout by Congress in the form of a link tax that would require [Internet] companies pay news orgs (mainly the vulture capitalist orgs that have been buying up local newspapers around the country, firing most of the journalists and living off of the legacy revenue streams) for... daring to send them traffic. We've gone over all the ways the bill is bad. We've gone over the fact that people in both the House and the Senate are (at this very moment) looking for ways to sneak it into law when no one's looking. Indeed, there are reports that there will be an announcement tonight that it's included as a part of the National Defense Appropriations Act (NDAA).
Consumer Reports is hosting an open letter against the JCPA [warning for PDF] signed by a long list of organizations, ranging from the Association of Research Libraries to the Wikimedia Foundation. The letter enumerates key problems with the bill.
Also at
The Free Press: The JCPA Is the Wrong Solution to the Crisis in Journalism,
Republic World: Facebook Warns Of Removing News From Platform In US If Congress Passes Journalism Bill,
NDTV: Meta Threatens To Remove News From Facebook If US Passes Media Bill,
Reuters: Facebook owner Meta may remove news from platform if U.S. Congress passes media bill,
ABC: Meta may remove news from Facebook if US Congress passes media bill,
and The Hill: Big tech and its critics lash out at journalism measure.
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