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?"

Comments

Re:Government should not compete

[onkelonkel]

I don't think you understand how vitally important this is. Without CanCon rules there would have been no Bryan Adams, no Alanis Morisette, no Avril Lavigne, no Celene Dion.

OK, never mind.

A silly idea, but may do some good

[Strike Fiss]

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...)

Re:Net Neutrality in Action

[SemiSpook]

Oddly enough, Rick Moranis revealed that the Mackenzie Brothers skit tacked on to the tail end of every episode of SCTV fulfilled the CRTC requirement. If someone could figure a way to do that for 'net content, you'd be golden.

Re:Net Neutrality in Action

[MightyMartian]

It's a great story. When they started showing SCTV down in the States, the CRTC demanded that some extra time in every episode be Canadian in content. So, feeling that this was an insane and idiotic intrusion on the show, Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas literally put a couch in front of a map of Canada, had a single cameraman rolling, and sat around being as stereotypical as possible beer-swilling inbred Ontario morons for the required number of minutes. Bob and Doug were nothing more than one big F--- You to the CRTC's Canadian content rules.