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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.
if these new media companies would simply stop their feed to Ontario IPs for a week just to make the point for once?
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.
They don't want to control foreign entities, they want to control the cultural inputs their subjects are exposed to. We're going to keep seeing more and more such efforts as the Internet threatens to create non-geographic groups for people to identify with, which in the extreme would make local powers into little more than regional managers.
After all, the idea that people owe allegiance to a distant capital rather than a particular city is relatively new one. Who's to say loyalty to a web forum couldn't end up outweighting loyalty to a nation?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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
Not to sound harsh, but Canada is a shithole and I would move to North Korea before I'd consider going up north.
Some people think Canadians are extraordinarily nice for how we deal with people like this, the truth is we simply have different ways of dealing with problems.
Consider the topic of justice and how to deal with bad people. The US is big into angry retributions and capital punishment, making sure people are punished harshly and everybody knows it.
Canada on the other hand simply tries to put bad people in a place where they don't bother anyone, and when someone does have to be punished we don't talk about it as much. In fact we're big believers in rehabilitation. Quite often we'll give the guilty something they really really want, hoping that in time they'll realize how terrible it is and discover the error of their ways.
I guess what I'm trying to say is I understand your anger and I'm sorry, we both know the US has been responsible for some terrible things, global warming, the Iraq War, NSA spying, etc, the list goes on for a while.
But sending Justin Beiber was definitely overkill.
I stole this Sig
I'm French! How do you think I got this outrageous accent?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The point of trade is that another country can do something better/faster/cheaper. If you can't compete then don't compete - don't invent some imaginary barriers then use lots of logic fallacies to defend it.
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.
Yeah, that's not how the world works. Sorry.
You see, you live in the USA. Your country is the biggest piece of shit when it comes to fair trade.
Why? Because you CANNOT compete. So you create bullshit regulations and trade barriers. But you go around the world bullying other countries to sign free trade agreements with you. So you can dump our countries with your crap - but we can't sell to you.
I'm from Argentina. We can't sell lemons to you (even though our lemons are cheaper than yours), and we can't sell beef to you (even though or beef is perfectly healthy). The US claims our beef is contaminated with Foot-and-mouth disease, so they won't accept it. All it takes is ONE case in my country for you to completely block us for years. Think about it for a little and figure it out. Have you? Let me explain: all it takes is for someone from the US to infect ONE of our cows - for the US to completely block trade for one of our main industries.
And the US works ACTIVELY so other countries CANNOT develop. For example, when Argentina was working on a 4K video codec, the US government, by way of "export controls" didn't allow nVidia to sell us more than 4 (four) Tesla units - for the whole country.
See? THAT is how the world works. Not with your libertarian free market theory.
Would you agree that a human right cannot be a right if it trumps some other human right?
Don't be fucking stupid, all human rights conflict other rights. My right to swing my fist is trumped by your right to not get punched in the head. my right of passage is trumped by your right to privacy.
One of the governments jobs is to balance rights. Whether it is restricting my right to swing my fist in favour of your right not to get punched or my right to make a living vs your right to exploit me.
From your viewpoint you should have the right to kick weaker people around. As a society we've decided you shouldn't have the right to kick weaker people around. I'm sorry that we're infringing on your right to kick people around but some of us don't like being kicked around.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism