The Senate Judiciary Committee approved a bill creating an exemption for journalists, allowing them to bargain as a group with tech platforms.

US antitrust law includes restrictions how price-fixing, a restriction that has made it difficult for journalists and news outlets to compete with Big Tech platforms or secure favorable agreements. The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA), a bill that would lift that restriction for journalists and give them the ability to negotiate effectively with Big Tech as a group.

Unfortunately, many critics say the JCPA either doesn’t go far enough or will create problems rather than fix them.

“I absolutely fully agree with the bill’s stated goals,” said Senator Alex Padilla (via Firehouse Strategies). “The decimation of local news is a disservice to our communities and I am deeply concerned…But here we are today, and the concerns I shared last year (about the JCPA) still have not been addressed. Instead, we’re considering the same bill with the same flaws…I think the bill both misdiagnoses the problems that led to the collapse of local news as we knew it and sets a startling and undesirable precedent…I am disappointed that the bill was scheduled for mark up before these issues could get worked out, because we raised them long ago, and I am disappointed we couldn’t improve the bill before it seems like it will be leaving Committee today.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was less impressed with the JCPA, saying it will create all-new problems in an effort to solve issues that are much better addressed by other legislative endeavors.

The way the JCPA is supposed to work is by giving an antitrust exemption to news sites, allowing them to negotiate as a bloc with sites like Google and Facebook, with the goal of getting paid every time those sites link to news articles. There are a few major, fundamental problems with that premise. For one, creating a new cartel to deal with existing monopolists is not competition, it’s the opposite. For another, creating an implicit right to control linking in any context won’t preserve journalism, it will let it rot away. Finally, the focus on getting paid for links makes even less sense when the problem, historically, has been the domination of the digital ad market by a few huge players. The Competition and Transparency in Digital Advertising Act actually targets that specific problem much more effectively than the JCPA.

It’s clear the JCPA faces significant challenges moving ahead, even if the goal of preserving local journalism and news outlets is a noble one.