Last Post: The unforgiving war

Australia’s victory over Facebook over paying for news is seen as a clear lesson for Vietnam in the fight against piracy.

To eliminate the “problem” that has eroded the press’s revenue as well as the reputation of the media for many years, not only the efforts of the content production units are needed, but also the drastic participation of the agency state management.

Lessons from the Australian war with Facebook
The incident stems from a bill called the Communications Negotiation Law, which was introduced by the Australian Government in 2020 when the state news agency could not reach a voluntary agreement with companies. technology in the face of difficulties caused by Covid-19. On February 18, Facebook removed the entire data feed of dozens of Australian media outlets and restricted the sharing of news content in the country.

The situation of media piracy in Vietnam is increasing. Photo: Victory

Some Australian emergency services have been seriously affected after the move, including pages that report on the Covid-19 epidemic, wildfires or tornadoes … However, soon after, the Prime Minister Australia Scott Morrison took a tough national stance in his assertion: Facebook’s actions were arrogant and disappointing.
Faced with the uncompromising attitude of the Australian side, on February 20, Facebook was forced to return to the negotiating table. On February 23, after reaching an agreement, Facebook restored the operation of Australian news sites on the social network. Specifically, the Australian government has agreed to make some amendments to the law to address Facebook’s concerns with the fact that it has to pay news agencies. In addition, Facebook will conduct specific negotiations on the fees payable for news agencies with content appearing on its platform.
On February 25, the Australian Government officially passed the Law on Negotiation of Digital Platforms and Media, thereby becoming the first country in the world to have its own agency to decide the price of the guys. The tech giant pays if trade negotiations with local news outlets are unsuccessful. This new law will ensure that news companies are paid fair remuneration for the content they create, helping to maintain journalism.
Thus, it can be seen that, although the real tension only lasted for about a week, the impact was extremely great when the Australian Government helped the media in this country get paid properly for their labor. they spend, at the same time creating a stable source of income for many years to come.
What should the Vietnamese press do?
It can be said that the most important factors for the Australian press to win against Facebook are the solidarity between the press agencies in the country as well as the drastic and uncompromising action from the government. At the forum “Copyright protection of press works” held in November 2020, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications Hoang Vinh Bao made a commitment to work closely with press agencies to eliminate the situation of piracy.

When encountering the phenomenon of copyright infringement, the press agencies need to set up a section to keep track of the violations, collate information, and submit written petitions to the competent agency to propose handling. At the same time, closely coordinate with state management agencies in the process of developing legal documents related to copyright issues and closely participate in the implementation process, comment on amendments to legal documents. copy.
On the other hand, press agencies also need to link together and link with network enterprises providing services to comply with the law on copyright issues on the basis of sharing interests, promoting advantages. strong. Not only that, it is also necessary to study, review and consult the experiences of other countries in the handling of copyright of press works, refer to how to trace and protect copyright to best protect the products. intellectual property of their own … – Deputy Minister Hoang Vinh Bao offers a solution.
Recognizing that the press copyright infringement originated mainly from the spread of news websites, right from the end of 2019, the Ministry of Information and Communications has launched a series of solutions to rectify as well as improve efficiency. State management results for this group. Specifically, the licensing of general websites has been suspended, and at the same time, strengthening the review with licensed news sites, if there is a situation of taking articles from newspapers and magazines without asking for permission. or acts like electronic newspapers are subject to administrative penalties to license revocation.
In addition, since November 15, 2019, news websites that synthesize news and articles from press agencies are required to have a written agreement, and at the same time must show the link. For access to the news, the original article is below the news, the article is retrieved.
At a lower level, one of the solutions given to limit piracy supported by many press agencies is to form a coalition of press – management agencies – technology enterprises to take advantage of its own strength thereby eliminating “spending time” which has been aching for many years. And the establishment of the Digital Copyright Center under the Vietnam Digital Media Association at the end of 2020 is one of the concrete strides when for the first time in Vietnam there is a unit applying technology to monitor micro-crime. piracy of the press.
The Digital Copyright Center will apply technology solutions to help press agencies to track their products in real time, thereby determining whether piracy is violated and the extent of infringement. percentage, thereby providing a solution to prevent. Currently the Center’s system has scanned over 600 newspapers, forums, blogs, 90 million Facebook profiles, 2 million pages and 3 million groups on social networks like Facebook and YouTube …
According to the director of the Center for Digital Copyright Hoang Dinh Chung, to thoroughly deal with copyright infringement, the press requires intervention by technology, not manually. Violators often use technology to commit violations, so only technology can stop them. With being able to scan the press works through content, images, audio or video … automatically, detecting violations is very easy and fast.
It is known that the Digital Copyright Center now has many partners who are major newspapers such as VOV TV channel, Tuoi Tien Phong and Children newspaper, Literature and Art Times, People’s Deputies Newspaper .. .

Countries are claiming benefits for the press from Facebook, Google

The United States: This country’s Alliance for News and Communications, with nearly 2,000 member organizations, is lobbying Australia to develop the “Conservation and Competition Press Act”, allowing publishers to negotiate with Online platform for content distribution terms. Canada: After a campaign in 2020 launched by 105 local newspapers, the Government of Canada has pledged to enact new laws forcing tech giants to pay for news content to appear on its platform. surname. – France: The French Competition Authority for many years has come up with solutions to call for technology platforms to pay for news. So far, Google is signing a deal worth $ 76 million with a series of French news agencies, allowing their news content to appear on Google News Showcase.