Facebook will pay News Corp to use its content in Australia
The companies signed a three-year agreement.
Facebook has signed a three-year deal that would give it permission to use content from News Corp properties in Australia. The multi-year agreement covers several Australian publications the company owns, including The Australian national newspaper, the news.com.au website, as well as The Daily Telegraph in New South Wales, Herald Sun in Victoria and The Courier-Mail in Queensland. As Reuters notes, News Corp is the first media outlet that has reached a deal with the social network following the passage of new laws that require tech giants pay publishers for using their content.
Unlike Google, which quickly struck a deal with News Corp and other outlets, Facebook held off on doing so and even blocked users from sharing news links in the country for a time. It accidentally blocked government Pages, non-profits and other non-media Pages when it implemented the ban, blaming the laws that apparently "didn't provide a clear guidance of the definition of news content." A few days later, though, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced that the company started negotiating with authorities again. Facebook then rolled back the news ban after authorities agreed to some changes in the then-proposed laws.
Now, it looks like Facebook is ready to strike deals to be able to populate its News tab with content. In its announcement, News Corp said the social network signed a separate agreement with Sky News Australia. Reuters says broadcaster and newspaper publisher Seven West Media Ltd and its rival Nine Entertainment Co Holdings Ltd are also currently in the middle of negotiations with Facebook.
