The legislature’s Education and Culture Committee yesterday passed a motion requiring the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) to finalize by August a model that would serve as a basis for drafting a news media bargaining law to govern pricing content.
The ministry should make a decision after analyzing similar legislation in other countries, together with bills proposed by legislators on the committee, the motion says.
The committee called a meeting with concerned government agencies after Taiwanese news media associations conducted two rounds of negotiations with representatives of Google and Meta in December last year and in March.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Following negotiations in December, Google on March 8 launched a Taiwan News Digital Co-Prosperity Fund, in which it pledged to spend NT$300 million (US$9.78 million) in the next three years to facilitate the digital transformation of Taiwan’s news industry.
Meta rejected any co-prosperity plan.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chang Liao Wan-chien (張廖萬堅) said the dialogue between digital platforms and Taiwanese news media failed to touch on the matter of legislation, which is the core issue.
Google’s co-prosperity fund would only spend NT$100 million per year, which looks more like a public relations fund to appease local news media, Chang Liao said.
“The fund would be managed by the Digital Transformation Association, but we are not certain if it is a credible organization and would safeguard freedom of speech,” he said, adding that the fund should be managed by the government.
Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Lee Huai-jen (李懷仁) told the committee that all government agencies have agreed that news has value, is related to public interests and should not be treated as a mere commodity.
The co-prosperity fund would not be enough to support local news media, as issues such as a reasonable division of profit between news media and digital platforms must be addressed, he said.
A third round of dialogue is to be held soon after the Digital Transformation Association begins accepting applications for funding from news media outlets, he said.
“We hope the dialogue would also be a way to supervise how the co-prosperity fund is used,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Executive Yuan has tasked the MODA and the Fair Trade Commission to study similar laws in other countries and consider what the best model for Taiwan would be, he said.
The News Media Bargaining Code in Australia makes it mandatory for digital platforms to negotiate over the pricing of content with news media should the two fail to reach an agreement, but such a practice would put small and medium-sized news media in an unfavorable position, he said.
Taiwan’s Copyright Act would have to be completely amended should the nation adopt neighboring rights in the EU copyright law demanding payments from digital platforms for using content produced by news media, he said.
The Ministry of Finance rejected levying a digital tax, Lee added.
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant