SIIA joins 12 civil society and industry organizations value free speech and local journalism to oppose AB 886, the California Journalism Preservation Act. While acknowledging the crisis faced by local journalism, these organizations argue against the bill’s premise that digital services are responsible for siphoning revenue from news sites through linking and traffic redirection.
Further, AB 886 is unconstitutional in numerous ways:
● It interferes with interstate commerce, by imposing a tax on linking to out-of-state content by
Californians.
● It violates the First Amendment by forcing websites to link to content against their choice.
● It is in conflict with the Supremacy Clause because it requires payment for the display of headlines, ledes, facts, and other elements of copyrightable works that the Copyright Act provides are freely accessible. For the same reason, AB 886 is expressly preempted by Section 301(a) of the U.S. Copyright Act.
