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CRTC Mulls Canadian Content On the Internet
PsiCTO writes "The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is going to weigh Internet content regulation — this could mean requiring some amount of Canadian content coming across Canadian pipes. The CRTC is akin to the FCC. They get that they can't 'regulate' the Internet, but are proposing to promote additional Canadian content in some way, as is currently done with radio and TV content. Likely they will discuss tax credits, subsidies, grants, or other traditional mechanisms. What do people think about this? Are there similar efforts, existing or proposed, in other countries?"
This is net neutrality in action. Once you hand over responsibility to the government, your service is only as good as those in power see fit. Internet censorship becomes a political whim, to be used when it is politically profitable for campaigns.
It hasn't helped Canadian "art" flourish. Quite the opposite -- it's provided funding to drek that no one wants. Commercial art (i.e. TV and radio) needs to be competitive to survive, not propped up by tax dollars. Witness the CBC's abysmal ratings and lack of standout series for the past many years.
An article I read this weekend explained that they're talking about Can-Con for foreign web broadcasters, including some TV channels that internet broadcast from the Phillipines. I don't think I've ever heard a more ludicrous thing -- demanding that foreign stations carry Canadian content!
Rather than bleat about the competition, CBC could do like CTV and start internet broadcasting their series as streaming video. The only CanCon rules I support would be to mandate that Canadian content be internet-enabled so that it can compete. Navel-gazing demands on the content carried by foreign channels is pointless -- there is no way to enforce it and it would be considered as interference by the nations where those channels are based, and rightly so.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If the CRTC wants to encourage Canadian Content on the net, maybe they could lobby Ottawa to create tax breaks for using local companies and carbon-footprint shrinking solutions. I just recently changed my host to a Canadian provider who uses Green Energy for their datacentre and I feel pretty happy about that. I suspect plenty of personal and professional Canadian users would do the same if there was even the most reasonable incentive to do so given out by the Gov.
And best thing about this plan: it wouldn't even require 1 out of every 100 homepages to be an Alanis Morsette or Celine Dion tribute page. (thank God...)
What nonsense. What in the hell is "cultural imperialism" anyway? It's an inflammatory but meaningless term. Quality Canadian artists thrive on the world stage and in the U.S. Even mediocre ones seem to do well. As for "economic imperialism", Canada does very well in its trade relations with the U.S. Canada's economy is a good balance of extractive, agricultural, manufacturing and service businesses. If there was any "economic imperialism" involved then the U.S would only be trading automobiles for timber and oil. That's not the case. Canada manufactures and exports automobiles, consultants, service, rail and other transportation services, and a whole host of high value economic products. To top it all off, Canada gets a big defense subsidy by being next to the U.S. It can afford to spend much less as a percent of GDP on defense because it knows the U.S. won't allow anyone to attack it. The CRTC and certain other Canadians engaging in this delusional paranoia are really undervaluing what Canada, Canadians and Canadian culture produce. Otherwise they wouldn't be so fearful of letting it compete fairly on the world stage. I don't see the Australians having this problem.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
Basically, yes.
Instead of attempting to regulate the internet, which would be insane at best and totally fucktarded at worst, they're probably going to try something else.
That would be grants and tax breaks to Canadian providers of internet content. Iliad (userfriendly) might get to write off (his? her?) bandwidth as a legitimate expense. If you create a blog, you might be able to get a grant. I don't know what they're planning.
The CRTC might be a huge bloated archaic corporation, but they're not complete morons.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I wonder how many of those people proudly wearing the maple leaf are actually Americans? While traveling in Europe about 6-7 years ago, I met around four people outside bars and restaurants who were Americans pretending to be Canadians. At this point, I just assume anyone wearing a Canadian flag on them is really just an American in disguise :)