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Ontario Government Wants To Regulate the Internet
An anonymous reader writes This afternoon, the Ontario government appeared before the CRTC as
part of its future of television hearing. Michael Geist reports
that it issued a clear call for new regulation of so-called new
media companies such as Netflix and Google. The government states: "In order to create a more level playing field, the ministry
recommends decreasing this regulatory imbalance. The ministry
believes the best way to accomplish this is to expand the
regulation of new media TV, rather than by lightening the current
regulation of traditional TV." What does the expansion of regulation involve? For the Ontario
government, it includes regulating
foreign online video services such as Google and Netflix, but
exempting Canadian services.
Agreed! And I'm based in Ontario. I suppose it is a coincidence that Rogers, the cable monopoly, is launching a streaming content service (movies, sports, etc) called Shomi that competes directly with Netflix. Rogers has too much influence with govt and needs to be broken up.
Ontario is so overregulated that actions like this are practically ingrained in the culture of bureaucrats.
The government has a monopoly on all liquor sales. You aren't even allowed to buy certain cough medicines unless there is a licensed pharmacist on premises, even though while they're busy in the back you can just grab the stuff off the shelf. All stores MUST be closed on certain statutory holidays even if there are people willing to work those days, and the store is fined heavily if it opens anyway.
All of this is, of course, theatrics designed to garner the perception of an effective government while the Ontario government debt has risen by a third or $90B over the last five years alone. And they're worried about regulating foreign OTT services? I predict spectacular failure as it has been for the longest time in the province.
I actually watched the hearing live - the CRTC (federal) asked the Ontario government representative (one presenter of many) "what are you going to do when the headlines read Ontario Government Wants To Regulate the Internet?". He of course tried to side step it as "just new media" but no one was really buying into what the Ontario rep was selling.
Eh, can you blame them for wanting to "keep jobs in their country"? I mean, you americans (if you aren't american just ignore that part) just don't get it. The problem with Netflix is that they are US based. And their servers too. Netflix, for example, is available here in Argentina. But they don't have any local servers. They just stream straight from the US. The service sucks (international bandwidth is not the same as national. Or even local, as Netflix does in the US with hundreds of caches across the USA).
Netflix collects money from Argentinians and pays zero taxes in Argentina. They also don't invest here. And they effectively block the competition by making it economically impossible for a company to sell here since they won't be able to match their price (capital cost and taxes). This is the same for every other country that's not the US.
Canada has successfully regulated the TV industry, requiring a certain amount of local productions. This is why a LOT of US shows are actually shot in vancouver with canadian actors. Without this, the TV industry in Canada would be tiny. This is the same thing that happens here in south america: dozens of cable channels broadcasting only US shows.
Unfortunately, capitalism tends to centralize things to make it more efficient. The only way to force things to change is by legislation.
I don't like paying taxes either, but I would like if there was an industry of things, not just "arrogance" like "you don't have a right to collect taxes from me, I don't pay taxes in your country. Yes, i sell millions of my product there but i owe you nothing. And you better have a good infrastructure for me to be able to sell"
I think regulating Google and Netflix is a really bad idea but I think there's a defensible motive in trying to promote Canadian content and defend Canadian content providers.
I'm not sure Americans really understand what it's like for smaller countries who lack the population or money to compete with American media productions. People get so much culture from television that it's hard to maintain a national identity when there's a US megaphone next door that dominates mass media. In some ways a well functioning film industry is as important as a military. Just look at what's happening in Ukraine, the rebellion is most certainly not fuelled by East Ukrainians, however it would be hard for Russia to do what it's doing without the support of an East Ukrainian minority who feels closer to Russia and is scared by Kiev. Almost certainly Russia's game would be much more difficult if Ukraine had a mass media strong enough to forge a strong national identity in East Ukraine.
That being said I'm not sure how this works on the Internet, but smaller countries do have a reason to worry about getting swamped by culture from American websites.
I stole this Sig
Actually Buenos Aires is trying to get Netflix to pay a 3% tax.
Argentinian netflix does have local movies. I watched Nueve Reinas (Nine Queens) there (if you're a netflix subscriber, would you please check for me if that's available in your region? If so, I'd also suggest you watch it).
The problem, as you say, if you buy a car and have it shipped, you pay tax. But services aren't taxed (I'm not saying they should or shouldn't, i'm just stating a fact). And, as you say, if they don't have offices, they shouldn't pay anything. And this is where it gets interesting: why should any american company have offices outside the US? Everything they do is online or over the phone. You don't go to a netflix office.
As for the quota of local content: yes, I don't want to see crap shows on TV to meet a quota, but, as you say, the production value is different. The US has a huge advantage: they have their own market, which is gigantic. And they own the distribution too. They don't make their shows to "export", they do because it doesn't cost them more money.
But other countries don't have that advantage, and they have to play in a completely unfair game. How do you expect your country's productions to get better if they just simply can't because they have to compete with TV shows?
A TV show in the US has a budget of millions of dollar per episode. High profile shows even have millions of dollars in salaries, per actor, per episode. You can't really expect a TV show made in Suriname to have a $2M budget per episode. Not even for a whole season. No other country shoots their TV shows on FILM like the US does (or used to do - probably now it's all 4K video). All other countries shoot on SD video - that should give you an idea of how much the americans can spend for production - and also: now they can re-release all their old shows in HD (because their source material is able to give you that resolution). Try that with European shows - oopsie: they were shot on video. Good luck competing with that.
Likewise, the Canadian government is not just impotent but incompetent to think they could actually control foreign entities
Of course they can. They can block netflix traffic at the canadian border.
And if netflix operates servers within canada, then those will be subject to the laws of canada.
Seems to me Canada can effectively regulate netflix for "canadian content requirements" if it wishes.
Whether this is 'good for canada' or "good for the internet" remains open questions, but it would be consistent with the regulation in place already for broadcast / cable tv, and the idea that they can't do it for select large internet streaming services is ridiculous. They most certainly can - half the work is done for them.
Due to licensing agreements for the content, major streamers already "arbitrarily" limit and restrict what is available in different companies, so all the infrastructure to do it is already in place. Incorporating a layer of government regulation wouldn't be particularly onerous.
I disagree with the Canadian content requirements, (although I do endorse the governments efforts to promote Canadian content); so I'm against what the government is proposing here. However, that doesn't mean its impractical for them to do it.