[Congressional Bills 116th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2054 Introduced in House (IH)]
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116th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 2054
To provide a temporary safe harbor for the publishers of online content
to collectively negotiate with dominant online platforms regarding the
terms on which their content may be distributed.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
April 3, 2019
Mr. Cicilline (for himself, Mr. Collins of Georgia, and Mr. DeSaulnier)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on
the Judiciary
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To provide a temporary safe harbor for the publishers of online content
to collectively negotiate with dominant online platforms regarding the
terms on which their content may be distributed.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Journalism Competition and
Preservation Act of 2019''.
SEC. 2. SAFE HARBOR FOR CERTAIN COLLECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS.
(a) Definitions.--For purposes of this section:
(1) The term ``news content creator'' means--
(A) any print or digital news organization that--
(i) has a dedicated professional editorial
staff that creates and distributes original
news and related content concerning local,
national, or international matters of public
interest on at least a weekly basis; and
(ii) is commercially marketed through
subscriptions, advertising, or sponsorship; and
(B) provides original news and related content,
with the editorial content consisting of not less than
25 percent current news and related content.
(2) The term ``Online Content Distributor'' means any
entity that--
(A) operates a website or other online service that
displays, distributes, or directs users to news
articles, works of journalism, or other content on the
internet that is generated by third-party news content
creators; and
(B) has not fewer than 1,000,000,000 monthly active
users, in the aggregate, of all of its websites or
online services worldwide.
(3) The term ``antitrust laws'' has the meaning given such
term in subsection (a) of the first section of the Clayton Act
(15 U.S.C. 12), and includes--
(A) section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act
(15 U.S.C. 45) to the extent that such section applies
to unfair methods of competition; and
(B) any State law, rule, or regulation that
prohibits or penalizes the conduct described in, or is
otherwise inconsistent with, subsection (b) of this
section.
(4) The term ``negotiation period'' means the period of
time beginning on the date this Act goes into effect and ending
48 months later.
(b) Limitation of Liability.--A news content creator shall not be
held liable under the antitrust laws for engaging in negotiations with
other news content creators during the negotiation period to
collectively withhold content from, or negotiate with, an Online
Content Distributor regarding the terms on which the news content
creators' news content may be distributed by the Online Content
Distributor, if--
(1) the negotiations with the Online Content Distributor--
(A) are not limited to price and are
nondiscriminatory as to similarly situated news content
creators, and directly relate to the quality, accuracy,
attribution or branding, and interoperability of news;
and
(B) pertain to terms that would be available to all
news content creators;
(2) the coordination among the news content creators is
directly related to and reasonably necessary for negotiations
with an Online Content Distributor that are otherwise
consistent with this Act; and
(3) the negotiations do not involve any person that is not
a news content creator or an Online Content Distributor.
(c) Rule of Construction.--Except as provided in this Act, this Act
shall not be construed to modify, impair, or supersede the operation of
the antitrust laws.
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