Australia’s ground-breaking law forcing platforms like Google and Facebook to pay local publishers for news faces an unlikely test case: a website that experts say uses fake journalist profiles that has won regulatory backing for its bid to be paid.
Australia’s regulator in charge of enforcing the law, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, last month added “News Cop”—an almost-unknown site without a physical address —to the public register of companies who can negotiate licensing deals with the parents of Facebook and Google under the government system.
