Microsoft is willing to pay copyright fees to Australian publishers

Earlier we mentioned that Australia is preparing new regulations for search engine products, which require search engine providers to pay copyright fees to publishers.

The reason is that search engines will index the abstract content when crawling the content of the website, and Australia believes that the abstract content also has copyright and should also be paid for copyright.

Google sneered at this practice in Australia. After all, the search engine model is to crawl content, index it, and provide users with keyword search results.

If publishing houses and websites are not indexed, it will actually harm the interests of these websites, because not indexing means that organic traffic cannot be obtained.

Google even threatened Australia that it would withdraw from the Australian market if the relevant laws were passed, but at this time Microsoft came to stir up the battle with Google.

Microsoft CEO Nadella had contacted the Australian government earlier. Nadella said that if Google withdrew from the Australian market, Microsoft would be happy to take over.

Microsoft’s Bing search has a market share of only 3% in Australia’s search engine market, not as much as Google’s. Of course, this is indeed an opportunity for Microsoft.

What’s even worse is that Microsoft even said that Bing Search is willing to comply with Australian regulations, pay copyright fees to publishers, and cooperate with the government for a win-win situation.

In addition, Microsoft also said that if Google withdraws from the Australian market, then Microsoft will help its customers transfer their advertising business from the Google platform to the Microsoft Bing platform.

Last week, Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, and I spoke with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Communications Minister Paul Fletcher about the Government’s proposed way of addressing the current bargaining power imbalance between digital platforms and Australian news businesses. During that conversation, we made the following points:

• Microsoft is committed to Australia and the news publishers that are vital to the country’s democracy.
• Microsoft recognizes that the media sector and public interest journalism currently face many challenges from the digital era, including changing business models and evolving consumer preferences. That is why Microsoft has long supported the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s (ACCC) efforts to analyse these issues and propose world-first solutions.
• Microsoft fully supports the News Media Bargaining Code. The code reasonably attempts to address the bargaining power imbalance between digital platforms and Australian news businesses. It also recognises the important role search plays, not only to consumers but to the thousands of Australian small businesses that rely on search and advertising technology to fund and support their organisations. While Microsoft is not subject to the legislation currently pending, we’d be willing to live by these rules if the government designates us.
• Microsoft will ensure that small businesses who wish to transfer their advertising to Bing can do so simply and with no transfer costs.  We recognise the important role search advertising plays to the more than two million small businesses in Australia.
• We will invest further to ensure Bing is comparable to our competitors and we remind people that they can help, with every search Bing gets better at finding what you are looking for.
• We believe that the current legislative proposal represents a fundamental step towards a more level playing field and a fairer digital ecosystem for consumers, business, and society.

One thing is clear: while other tech companies may sometimes threaten to leave Australia, Microsoft will never make such a threat. We appreciate what Australia has long meant for Microsoft’s growth as a company, and we are committed to supporting the country’s national security and economic success.