According to The Register I could be regarded as a publisher and subject to regulation if I was based in Australia:
Bloggers whose online scrawling earns just 41 page impressions a day could be forced to apologise to those they wrong on their sites and issue corrections, under a proposed new model of media regulation for Australia.
Under those numbers I would count as someone who needed to be regulated, that is if you class this site as a news site. I’m not sure what counts as a news site? I’m sure that this site could be classed as news under some of the dictionary definitions? I comment on things that are current?
The report then says “If a publisher distributes more than 3000 copies of print per issue or a news internet site has a minimum of 15 000 hits per annum it should be subject to the jurisdiction of the News Media Council, but not otherwise.” The report adds that “ These numbers are arbitrary, but a line must be drawn somewhere.”
We, in the UK, are still in the middle of the enquiries into the actions that sparked the discussions in Australia so I’ve no idea whether anyone is thinking of a similar thing over here. I can’t imagine that 15,000 hits a year would be a sensible number for the UK market though.
Graham Chastney 