II 

116TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION S. 1700 

To provide a temporary safe harbor for publishers of online content to 

collectively negotiate with dominant online platforms regarding the terms 

on which content may be distributed. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

JUNE 3, 2019 

Mr. KENNEDY (for himself and Ms. KLOBUCHAR) introduced the following 

bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 

A BILL 

To provide a temporary safe harbor for publishers of online 

content to collectively negotiate with dominant online 

platforms regarding the terms on which content may 

be distributed. 

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Journalism Competi5 tion and Preservation Act of 2019’’. 

6 SEC. 2. SAFE HARBOR FOR CERTAIN COLLECTIVE NEGO7 TIATIONS. 

8 (a) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS
2 

•S 1700 IS

1 (1) ANTITRUST LAWS.—The term ‘‘antitrust 

2 laws’’— 

3 (A) has the meaning given the term in 

4 subsection (a) of the first section of the Clayton 

5 Act (15 U.S.C. 12); and 

6 (B) includes— 

7 (i) section 5 of the Federal Trade 

8 Commission Act (15 U.S.C. 45) to the ex9 tent that section applies to unfair methods 

10 of competition; and 

11 (ii) any State law (including regula12 tions) that prohibits or penalizes the con13 duct described in, or is otherwise incon14 sistent with, subsection (b). 

15 (2) NEWS CONTENT CREATOR.—The term 

16 ‘‘news content creator’’ means— 

17 (A) any print or digital news organization 

18 that— 

19 (i) has a dedicated professional edi20 torial staff that creates and distributes 

21 original news and related content con22 cerning local, national, or international 

23 matters of public interest on at least a 

24 weekly basis; and 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS
3 

•S 1700 IS

1 (ii) is commercially marketed through 

2 subscriptions, advertising, or sponsorship; 

3 and 

4 (B) provides original news and related con5 tent, with the editorial content consisting of not 

6 less than 25 percent current news and related 

7 content. 

8 (3) ONLINE CONTENT DISTRIBUTOR.—The 

9 term ‘‘online content distributor’’ means any entity 

10 that— 

11 (A) operates a website or other online serv12 ice that displays, distributes, or directs users to 

13 news articles, works of journalism, or other con14 tent on the internet that is generated by third15 party news content creators; and 

16 (B) has not fewer than 1,000,000,000 

17 monthly active users, in the aggregate, of all of 

18 its websites or online services worldwide. 

19 (b) LIMITATION OF LIABILITY.—A news content cre20 ator may not be held liable under the antitrust laws for 

21 engaging in negotiations with any other news content cre22 ator during the 4-year period beginning on the date of en23 actment of this Act to collectively withhold content from, 

24 or negotiate with, an online content distributor regarding 

25 the terms on which the news content of the news content 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS
4 

•S 1700 IS

1 creator may be distributed by the online content dis2 tributor, if— 

3 (1) the negotiations with the online content dis4 tributor— 

5 (A) are not limited to price; 

6 (B) are nondiscriminatory as to similarly 

7 situated news content creators; 

8 (C) directly relate to the quality, accuracy, 

9 attribution or branding, and interoperability of 

10 news; and 

11 (D) pertain to terms that would be avail12 able to all news content creators; 

13 (2) the coordination between the news content 

14 creators is directly related to and reasonably nec15 essary for negotiations with an online content dis16 tributor that are otherwise consistent with this Act; 

17 and 

18 (3) the negotiations do not involve any person 

19 that is not a news content creator or an online con20 tent distributor. 

21 (c) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Except as provided in 

22 this Act, this Act shall not be construed to modify, impair, 

23 or supersede the operation of the antitrust laws. 

Æ 


kjohnson on DSK79L0C42 with BILLS