News Publishers, Digital Platforms, and Bargaining Codes: Debunking the Free-Riding Myth

Abstract In response to the long-standing crisis in the publishing industry, a range of regulatory measures has been proposed and implemented worldwide, aiming to compel large online platforms to negotiate the use of news content and provide fair remuneration to publishers. From this perspective, the structural decline of the publishing sector is attributed to digital platforms capturing a significant share of advertising revenues by free-riding on publishers’ investments in news production. Moreover, due to their reliance on referral traffic, publishers are perceived to suffer from a structural imbalance in bargaining power vis-à-vis these platforms. Within this framework, by introducing a revenue transfer mechanism based on a mandatory negotiation process, the Australian model has gained prominence and influenced policy approaches in several other jurisdictions. Against this background, the paper adopts a different research perspective. Rather than presuming the existence of a free-riding problem, it critically examines whether the rationale underlying these regulatory initiatives has been substantiated and supported by empirical evidence. The paper contends that the free-riding narrative serves chiefly as a rhetorical tool, strategically used to legitimize a mandated transfer of revenue that policymakers appear ready to pursue even in the absence of clear evidence that platform-based business models have caused economic harm to press publishers.