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EU To Move Ahead With Cultural Quotas For Streaming Services (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: The European Union is set to move ahead with a plan to enforce pan-European quotas on streaming services like Amazon Prime Video and Netflix to support production of locally produced film and video content. Roberto Viola, the European Commission's directorate general of communication, networks, content and technology told Variety that the new rules are on track to be approved in December. The proposals will require that streaming services give over at least 30% of their on-demand catalogues to original productions made in each EU country where a service is provided (individual EU Member States could choose to set the content bar even higher, at 40%).
Streaming services will also have to ensure visibility and prominence for local content -- so no burying the 'European third' in a dingy corner of the site where no one will find it, let alone stream it. The EU lawmakers' intention is to stand up for cultural diversity against the might of Hollywood and the flattening power of platforms -- in the latter case by making platforms invest in local content production rather than just doing the easy thing of fencing yet more Marvel superhero movies.
Streaming services will also have to ensure visibility and prominence for local content -- so no burying the 'European third' in a dingy corner of the site where no one will find it, let alone stream it. The EU lawmakers' intention is to stand up for cultural diversity against the might of Hollywood and the flattening power of platforms -- in the latter case by making platforms invest in local content production rather than just doing the easy thing of fencing yet more Marvel superhero movies.
They will quickly find, much to their chagrin, that people will still end up watching Marvel movies rather than some movie about everyone in a French village being struck with a devastating plague of ennui.
These aren't anything like tariffs, so it's perfectly fine to get red in the face at Trump over those.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Have you considered were just making crap TV?
Anything good is mostly picked up straight away.
Such quotas can be enforced in two ways: increasing the amount of local contents (as desired by the EU) or reducing the amount of foreign content.
I predict massive reductions in the catalogue of Netflix in most European countries.
Only subsidise "diverse and inclusive" cultural content, meaning lots of girls in headscarves and guys in beards and nightgowns.
Because Von Coudenhove-Kalergi says it's a good idea.
cancon has been around for long time even saga channel had to have it.
Canada had something similar in place 30 years ago - it gave us such gems as SCTV's "Great White North" and the movie "Strange Brew". Thanks to that I learned the difference between back bacon and side bacon, and developed an appreciation for Molson's!
Take off, you Hollywood Hosers!
#DeleteChrome
EU, that's really not how culture works.
How long before companies just stand up and say "No" to this kind of buttinsky BS?
And if the governments cry too hard, simply yank service in that country to all save one video.
That of a citizen of that country explaining how their government shoved their collective heads up their collective asses and telling the collective members of said government to eat a bag of dicks.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I don't understand why technically Netflix is supposed to "give over" anything - can't they just ALSO host EU content? Is this rule really mandating that Netflix stop streaming some content even though technically they could steam any amount of content with enough server space?
I mean, over here in America I'd love to see this content also, let everyone see it!
I look forward to the new category in the Netflix TV app - right next to "Violent TV shows", or "Feel Good Reality TV" (both actual Netflix categories), they can add a new one "Dreck the EU Made Us Show You".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Question is, if european sourced content is so great, why bother with mandating netflix consume it? If the demand exists, why not create or fund a european service that sources primarily european entertainment?
This signature has Super Cow Powers
As a Canadian where this was implemented LONG ago; I hope that Europe can manage to enforce platforms through regulations like this. A LOT of amazing content has come from the additional visibility and some of the worlds best production companies work through Canada in some capacity.
I look forward to more and more amazing European content in the future!
Establishing quotas in this manner is a form of protectionism. US President Trump also supports protectionist policies and he is widely criticized for doing so. These rules are characterized as protecting the culture of each EU country. That could also be described as establishing limits to keep other cultures out. It's the same principle behind what President Trump is doing as is criticized for. If we're going to be fair, the EU deserves to be criticized for protectionism just like the US and President Trump gets criticized for it. There are other ways to support local content such as the common practice of governments subsidizing the creation of films locally. While that also favors local content, I'd prefer it much more than exclusionary measures like what the EU is planning. Lert's be fair and criticize the EU the same way we'd criticize the US and President Trump for protectionism.
Not sure if you've seen some of the Netflix originals from other countries. Many of them are incredible, and almost always n provide different perspectives even if it's based on a known plot line. I think this would be good. The other curious part is that they have been good about putting content or pretty up front and making it accessible in native and local languages (at minimum).
If I were Amazon or Netflix I would immediately cut all streaming to the EU until the quotas were eliminated.
This is a mind boggling stupid move. You are literally telling a business that they have to serve crap up to an audience which probably doesn't even want it. They will then stop watching undermining the very objective of producing more culturally relevant content for local audiences. All because of some stupid socialist agenda that doesn't understand why socialism and crony capitalism doesn't work economically for the benefit of the people. You can point to resource wealthy countries that are socialist, but that doesn't change the fact it doesn't work on its own and such policies fuck up what is otherwise a workable free market providing goods, services, and entertainment and reduces the countries economic potential.
stand up for cultural diversity against the might of Hollywood and the flattening power of platforms
Ha! I feel like if you cold somehow count creating Steel or Aluminum as "cultural diversity", the EU would try to get away with that. This is nothing but a trade dispute and an attempt for the EU to insist that the local boys get paid rather than the foreigners.
That's fine I guess. Everyone is trying to get whatever is good for their country, and TV content is about the least necessary thing in the world. But don't try to trick people into thinking you're standing of for "Diversity", it's the same old protectionist ploy that all governments engage in to varying degrees.
Markets are more fair than central planning. Government Net Neutrality in action, to make you a better person.
I can't see how this can possibly work in eg Malta, Luxembourg and Cyprus, countries which are very small so will have almost no local content either back catalogue or current production. Just means Netflix etc will never do business there.
I can't wait to see where they get all the Maltese TV.
Also, I think this means that the entirety of the EU catalog cannot be shared among the member states.
Hollywood has been spreading anti-religous bigotry for many decades. Also, Western Europe has been moving away from Christianity for generations. Neither has made people more egalitarian or happy. How do you expect Western Europe to be more anti-religious than Hollywood? You can't expect them to create anti-Islamic programming; That would cause people to get killed.
As long as the foreign content is from the UK. They actually produce the best content.
these are quotas on locally produced content. I'm not surprised the EU would want them. It's not hard to see why smaller local studios can't compete with (let's be honest mostly US based) mega corporations.
And it's not so much that nobody watches the local content as it's that nobody'll produce it because why spend money making content for 2 markets when you can do it for one and folks will watch by default.
Hell, I wish we'd do this in America. Lately the dialog and plots in American movies suck balls because they have to be watered down to get past Chinese censors and/or be easy to dub over.
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Canadian here. For years our governments have tried to force a degree of Canadian-Content (CanCon) to be available.
The problem is while some of it might be OK, much of it is complete fucking dreck. As a kid I learned to recognize Canadian cinematography almost instantly, and I'd just keep changing the channel. Something about the way it was filmed, you immediately knew, and immediately knew you didn't care what it was, you just knew you didn't want to watch it.
But, quite honestly, I find Netflix has a lot of global content, as I see a lot of things show up which seem to be Spanish, French, and a few others (what I infer to be Czech or Turkish based on the names of the actors) ... in fact, some of it I have to fight off with a stick because suddenly 20 movies I've never heard of in languages I don't speak will bubble up and try to make themselves known. (They must have gone on a Hindi language movie bender for a while there, and I'm not a fan of Bollywood.)
I've also watched some pretty decent Euro productions on Netflix as well, so it's not like they don't have it. And some of that is actually Netflix originals that I've watched.
And Netflix does a really good job of recommending based on what you've actually watched ... I watched an old Kung Fu movie the other week. Suddenly I had an entire section of Cantonese language films, which is actually awesome because it's all of these great old action films. I don't speak Cantonese, but I can handle sub-titles, and many of these I've never seen.
The problem with trying to force this stuff to be available to the viewers might lead to the awkward conversation of "what is this shit, and why do you think I want to watch it?" Just because you try to force it to be available, doesn't mean everyone wants to watch it ... not everyone is into art-house films.
Next I'm sure they'll try to force viewers to watch a certain portion of it, because that's what such governments do. So, they may force this, and then nobody will watch it anyway ... and then the companies will be saying that if nobody is watching it, why are they forced to carry it?
And, here is the problem with that .. if you force 30-40% of all of the content on the streaming service, you're going to crowd out what people want with a bunch of shit they don't care about.
I can only imagine the version of Netflix with 30% Armenian programming. These services are good because they have a large volume of shows. Forcing that much of a percentage to be local pretty much dooms those services to being shitty in those countries.
By cultural quotas they must mean government propaganda pro-immigration shit, right?
Otherwise, this makes no sense at all, coming from an organization that considers any promotion of european culture to be an act of racism.
So in the short-term, Netflix and Amazon will just disable whatever percentage of their library until they hit the magic number required. This will definitely reduce the amount of content available until original content from each country starts to show up.
In the long run this could in theory help get production companies going in each member state. Only time will tell how well that will work out. In the short term, the least watched content will get chopped down so that netflix can claim that now offer 30% EU content.
If Neflix buys exclusive streaming rights to enough EU produced content and locks it down for a long time it could be difficult or expensive for competitors to establish a foothold...
I'm pretty sure that, in EU parlance, "locally created" is shorthand for made in Italy or France.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Would be to increase prices 30% and use that money to fund local content. Even better you could just output 30% of your videos into category "local content" and just be sure to only buy dirt cheap b rated local content.
Face value shows no more than 3 non EU players. With a billion and one loopholes and exceptions...
Jesus Christ you are the whiniest Mormon in beantown, shut the fuck up and go celebrate Christmas in September you fucking WHINER, lol. YOUR PROBLEMS ARE IN YOUR MIND, GOD-SMOKING NUTBAR.
Thank goodness. The world would be a poorer place without German sitcoms.
You can't expect them to create anti-Islamic programming; That would cause people to get killed.
And worse, cause elected officials to lose re-election.
The Three Tribes of Austerity
Austerity prevails in the West because three powerful political tribes champion it. Enemies of big government have coalesced with European social democrats and tax-cutting US Republicans, to create a cartel-based, hierarchical, financialized global economic system
By Yanis Varoufakis
August 31, 2018 "Information Clearing House" - ATHENS – No policy is as self-defeating during recessionary times as the pursuit of a budget surplus for the purpose of containing public debt – austerity, for short. So, as the world approaches the tenth anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, it is appropriate to ask why austerity proved so popular with Western political elites following the financial sector’s implosion in 2008.
The economic case against austerity is cut and dried: An economic downturn, by definition, implies shrinking private-sector expenditure. A government that cuts public spending in response to falling tax revenues inadvertently depresses national income (which is the sum of private and public spending) and, inevitably, its own revenues. It thus defeats the original purpose of cutting the deficit.
Clearly, there must be another, non-economic, rationale for supporting austerity. In fact, those favoring austerity are divided among three rather different tribes, each promoting it for its own reasons.
The first, and best known, “austerian” tribe is motivated by the tendency to view the state as no different from a business or a household that must tighten its belt during bad times. Overlooking the crucial interdependence between a government’s expenditure and (tax) income (from which businesses and households are blissfully free), they make the erroneous intellectual leap from private parsimony to public austerity. Of course, this is no arbitrary error; it is powerfully motivated by an ideological commitment to small government, which in turn veils a more sinister class interest in redistributing risks and losses to the poor.
A second, less recognized, austerian tribe can be found within European social democracy. To take one towering example, when the 2008 crisis erupted, Germany’s finance ministry was in the hands of Peer Steinbrück, a leading member of the Social Democratic Party. Almost immediately, Steinbrück prescribed a dose of austerity as Germany’s optimal response to the Great Recession.
Moreover, Steinbrück championed a constitutional amendment that would ban all future German governments from deviating from austerity, no matter how deep the economic downturn. Why, one may ask, would a social democrat turn self-defeating austerity into a constitutional edict during capitalism’s worst crisis in decades?
Steinbrück delivered his answer in the Bundestag in March 2009. “It’s democracy, stupid!” would be an apt summary of his tortured argument. Against a background of failing banks and a mighty recession, he opined that fiscal deficits deny elected politicians “room for maneuver” and rob the electorate of meaningful choices.
While Steinbrück did not spell it out fully, his underlying message was clear: Even if austerity destroys jobs and hurts ordinary people, it is necessary in order to preserve space for democratic choices. Oddly, it did not occur to him that, at least during a downturn, democratic options are best secured without fiscal tightening, simply by increasing taxes for the rich and social benefits for the poor.
The third austerian tribe is American and perhaps the most fascinating of the three. Whereas British Thatcherites and German social democrats practiced austerity in an ill-conceived attempt to eliminate the government’s budget deficit, US Republicans neither genuinely care to limit the federal government’s budget deficit nor believe that they will succeed in doing so. After winning office on a platform proclaiming their loathing of large gove
These under represented EU classics will finally be seen by the masses.
"Must Carry" was the FCC approach to local channels in the U.S. It gave the cable carriers a mandate that, if the local channel wanted, they could force the cable carrier to carry their channel... at no cost.
Or... if the local channel insisted on being paid - keep in mind that the same channel is on the airwaves for "free", sponsored by advertising - then the cable carriers are not under that compulsion.
Of course the local channels get in battles over the carriage fee, and instead now want a large payment, resulting in regular black-outs during contract negotiations.
This EU mandate may result in, essentially, the equivalent of the old Public Access programs. Good local content won't be available, because it costs money and really nobody cares. But mediocre podcasts might be, by artists hungry for free exposure. Netflix will just have to add a local YouTube-like content area.
If this can be done to providers of digital media, what is to stop it being done to brick and mortar bookshops?
Will Lower Slobovia demand bookstores to fill 40% of its shelf space with Lower Slobovian authors? This would not be very popular with the bookshop owners. And it would not necessarily be applauded by their customers either.
In the 1920s, UK cinema was suffering from competition from the USA. In response, cinemas were told that 20% of films had to be British. The result of this was simple: companies started producing "quota quickies". Really low budget films that cinemas could buy cheaply and show, just to hit the quota. There's no reason Netflix won't do the same. Go to a company like Gaumont or Pathe and ask what they've got going cheap. Lousy films everyone has forgotten that were made in the 1950s and they'll put them on. Quota ticked.
RIIIGGHHHT this is all about 'promoting diversity'. If their citizens don't want to watch the stuff Prime, Netflix etc. pump out then they won't watch it...but we'll FORCE the content providers to create content that nobody other than the EU Parliament is really demanding & ensure we have 'cultural diversity' even though no one will watch it anyway.
Gotta love socialism whose motto has to be "All problems can be made worse via centralized planning."
i only have amazon prime and i'm in the UK. there is some locally made UTTER SHIT on there. so bad my reviews keeps getting rejected. sub student level films, probably bought for £50 or free so the 'filmmakers' can boast of a credit. turgid crap that is allowed to have those laurel wreaths on the cover like its won some awards.
worst i've seen is this utter fucking shit called 'up north': https://www.amazon.co.uk/Football-Up-North/dp/B06XYH9PJ5 and christ they have even now put on season 2! Seriously you must see this to realise how bad it is. My friends kids made better videos.
lots of 5 star reviews (from the cast/crew or familiy members i'd imagine) but they wouldn't post my review as it broke community guidelines, here's some other 1 star reviews:
Please take this off Amazon Prime: Absolute garbage. Unfunny, badly made, poor editing, awful script. Student productions have better standards than this.
**I concur I work with film/tv students at university. this would fail even in year 1**
Life's too short...: Full disclosure: I didn't get past the first 3 minutes. Couldn't take it anymore.
Save yourself DO NOT WATCH: What is wrong with people this has the be the single worst thing I have ever sat down to watch. Please save yourself do not watch this. The dullest actors and the worst script, had to turn it off and i turn very little off.
Terrible waste of time: Do NOT waste your time on this rubbish, whoever commissioned this for them should ask for their fiver back.
Absolute rubbish. I'd rather wash the dishes.
slightyly less crap (i.e. the 'filmmaker' has perhaps spent more than 20 hours fiddling with a camera) but still a total waste of time: Frettin' https://www.amazon.co.uk/Frettin-Mark-Haldor/dp/B0771QPYJX now this is student level work. i could go on.
it isn't just about hours its about quality. they need to pay a decent amount of money to buy or commision decent material.
i'm all up for the idea, i'm wary of the US cultural hegemony, i'd prefer to see more aussie and NZ content on prime, those guys are our cultural brothers.
so yeah - introduce quotas but be prepared to pay some decent money for it
Such quotas can be enforced in two ways
Actually, there is only one way: you HAVE to cut content. The EU currently has 28 member countries and so if each of them has to have 30% local content then the ONLY way you can manage that is to restrict the content available in each country because if all the content you make is available in every country then any one country's share will be a lot less than 30%.
To make matters worse the EU has very strict rules against restricting services between countries so, if you only allow a show to be seen in country X and not in country Y you may well get into trouble. I suppose one way around this would be to have multiple streaming services each of which plays the same local content to make the 30% requirement and then programming from two plus a third other country's content but I can't help getting the idea that someone did not think these new rules through from a simple mathematical perspective...
Hollywood has been spreading anti-religous bigotry for many decades. Also, Western Europe has been moving away from Christianity for generations. Neither has made people more egalitarian or happy.
really?? see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... 17 countries ranked higher than the US. 12 of them were from europe.
Why are you assuming that they don't want to watch local content? It isn't as if Hollywood produces the highest quality entertainment on the planet. It is the most expensive, like our health care, expensive and shitty outcomes.
Only I can judge you.
Aren't there EU laws regarding not being allowed to geofence their service?
How do you give "30% local" to every EU country when you can't restrict the content by country?
Netflix gets into the porn business in EU countries.
There are decades of "local" porn out of current EU members countries, and for all I know, lots of new ones being produced.
in that regard and pretty famous for it. And they make no bones about it, they don't want to lose French culture to the melting pot of globalization (waste of time in the Internet age if you ask me). I don't see that's what the EU is doing here. It just looks like an honest attempt to make sure home grown content doesn't get crushed by slick Hollywood production values.
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This is quite funny because there are several British TV shows I'd love to get here in the US but can't because of licensing issues. I'd love me some Red Dwarf but can't get it here in the US.
I tried to go the UKTV streaming service and could get it here is Western US because their registration process requires a valid GB mail code.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Ranked on a self selected response to a survey question.... How stupid do you have to be to think that is measure of anything real?
Because if everyone wanted to watch local content, they wouldn't have to force Netflix to carry it at gunpoint.
If there's enough demand for something, Netflix will carry it, just to make money doing so. You'll only have to force them if what you're requiring is that they show something that will lose money....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Hold up. 30% of their content must come from each EU country.
28÷3 = 9.3
So either each country’s originals are banned from viewing in other countries, this law needs amending, or the math says they need ten times more content, without increasing their supply of content. The math simply can’t work as presented in the summary.
From Variety,
Okay, so we’ve got the option to make that third entirely handled within the country. Yet even that is ambiguous — is it a third of Netflix’s catalogue has to be made in Europe, or a third in every single of the twenty eight member countries? ‘Cause that’s sure what everyone seems to say, and that’s mathematically impossible.
Hmm. I don't recall Netflix _ever_ sending me a survey asking me what I want to watch. They post stuff, I either watch it or I don't, they really really have never asked me. If they don't put up the content, they won't know if anyone wants to watch it. I think it is very provincial to assume that everyone on the entire planet wants to watch 'murican shows.
Only I can judge you.
when you can't inovate, overregulate!
What the EU intends: TV shows that remain faithful to the vision of each country's own distinct culture.
What will really happen: Netflix films 20 new TV shows based on... what else... Marvel or DC Comics, but has them produced in the EU instead of the US or Canada. Except they all follow Hollywood norms, have casts fluent in English & are produced IN English(*) so they can be directly monetized as-is in the US and internationally, and end up practically extinguishing what's left of that country's "culturally distinct" film industry (because everyone involved with the country's film/tv industry ends up being too busy chasing after Netflix's money).
Oh... and lots of low-budget reality-TV and game shows, because they're just about the only kind of show you CAN profitably make if your total market and language community only has a few million potential viewers.
The thing lots of people overlook is that "Hollywood" isn't a place. It's not even necessarily AMERICAN anymore. It's a business model that has proven over time to be wildly profitable & has spread over the globe.
Case in point: how would you classify the nationality of a TV show like "Game of Thrones"? Most of its cast members are European. Practically every scene was filmed in Europe. The CGI and production are done in Europe.
---
(*) Or possibly, shoot scenes involving visibly-spoken dialogue twice, back to back... once in English, and once in the country's official language. It would cost more, but not THAT MUCH more since you'd be using the same cast (they're all bilingual, remember), the same CGI, and could do the editing workflow in parallel... and you'd end up with two versions, both of which were a first-quality original shot in their respective languages.
I can't cite any specific examples, but I'm pretty sure this is ALREADY happening with big-budget Hollywood films co-produced with Chinese studios... two directors & casts [possibly with a few actors shared by both], shooting back to back using the same sets, extras, and CGI.
Radios in France have a quota of 40% of French "speaking" music, and although you could argue the quality of French "pop" (it's bad), it did keep the industry alive. Of course, the quota of French songs on radio tends to revolve around a small number of tunes in constant rotation but that's the way commercial radio works.
Because quotas worked out so well for the BBC.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
He can't have much free time if he's an entire department by himself.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Because if everyone wanted to watch local content, they wouldn't have to force Netflix to carry it at gunpoint.
Ok, so it is perhaps less than everyone.
If there's enough demand for something, Netflix will carry it, just to make money doing so. You'll only have to force them if what you're requiring is that they show something that will lose money....
Nope. Turns out companies like Netflix willfully and deliberately cut product solely at their own discretion, not because of any lack of profit(let alone value to the customer), but just a general disinterest and disdain that is contrary to the desired outcome for the citizens. Since the government answers to the citizens, those are the ones you have to consider if you are an elected official.
Same reason we can't let other companies behave how they like. They will decide to fuck with a certain number of us.
Netflix, Amazon Prime Video et al will just flip you the bird and turn them off there.
Good luck making your own equivalents.
Are you really that dumb? Netflix has significant resources going into determining what content will make it the most money. That sort of thing is generally connected to keeping people happy/watching. To suggest that just because you didn't get a survey they don't know what content you like (or really a given population likes) is utterly ridicules. The fact of the matter is if you want locally produced content your going to have to watch said content and if Netflix doesn't provide that for whatever reason then go find some other service that does. If I had to take an educated guess YouTube probably has shit tons of locally produced content. I certainly know YouTube has tons of locally produced content in New Hampshire. It might not be what you want, but it's still locally produced, and you may find more of it if you watch it, because the creators will end up with more financially to produce more content. Particularly if they are business savvy.
Missing out on most of the TV shows just so we can watch some more bullshit Tim Horton's commercials and corner gas spinoffs that nobody gives a fuck about
Clearly you are part of the problem
necessity is the mother of invention. Doctor Who was fantastic and made on a shoe string. The Michael Bay Transformers movies are $100+ million a pop and some of the worst drivel I've ever seen. I'd like to see some small local talent get a shot. They're likely to be constrained in ways that a big production is not, and those constraints will make them more interesting.
It's like a garden full of Dandelions. They look nice and all but they're still weeds and they'll crowd out the rest of your followers.
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Devil's in the Details...
So, is it 30% of total minutes available, or just 30% of titles? Either way, this is trivially solved...
It seems like every arts student has a film up on youtube. How much would it cost Netflix for the showing rights? $10/film? Less? Hey, even at a mere $10/film I can crank out enough short "artsy" films to buy myself a new sportscar pretty darn quick! (Probably do a lot with Mandelbrot zooms or cellular automaton with computer generated classic music in the background. Or time lapse traffic moving around the city.)
Visibility & prominence: Not a problem. Just add a row of local films, just like we have "continue watching", "trending", "because you watched BLAH", etc right now.
Not sure if this law actually got passed here or not, but I had a simple suggestion for Netflix. Just allow locals to post their own videos in a YouTube like section on the site. It won't take long to get thousands of videos that fill the quotas that the government wants. If you want local culture, then local people should produce it.
The BBC produces a plethora of worthwhile content that not only stands and competes on its own merits; but is so sought-after that many people don't even wait for it to be legitimately available.
Even in the '90s, before moving large video files around on the internet was feasible; things like Red Dwarf and old-school Doctor Who had huge and thriving bootleg PAL to NTSC converted VHS scenes. And when they re-introduced Doctor Who in 2005? Well, more than a few people started using BitTorrent that year, because BBC America was not available in their cable market at the time. Then there's Top Gear, Torchwood, Broadchurch, AbFab, Graham Norton, and Downton Abby, the original versions of The Office, Queer as Folk, and Skins, and of course the various iterations of BBC News.
But no, EU; don't bother producing good content that can stand on it's own. Abuse the law to force crap content that no one wants on people. I'd bet if you find the money trail and follow it; there'd be some nicely large campaign contributions at the end.
Imagine all the people...
Guess Crunchyroll's going to get kicked out of the EU. They're over 90% Japanese.
Step 2: due to scarcity of films, local film makers demand premiums from NetFlix so NetFlix can make its quotas.
Step 3: To break that stranglehold, NetFlix opens (or subsidizes) studios in each country, churning out cheap, abundant schlock that meets the 30% local criteria.
Step 4: European commission updates standards qualifying what is and is not artistic and local enough.
Step 5: Local film innovation gets squeezed out by formulaic film makers, OR local film makers have to (discretely) bribe commission members to approve their films by offering 'film debut trips' to exotic locations, 'film opening galas' with lots of free booze and schmoozing with glamorous actors who are told they need to be 'friendly', etc.
Yeah and cancon is pretty much reviled by most people in Canada, because it produces nothing of worthwhile. It's simply a waste of tax dollars to create/promote culture. Something that in and of itself is organic.
Om, nomnomnom...
Requirement will be for 30% EU content, not for specific country content. Some countries may require part of this to be their local productions, but its optional.
"Viola said that, starting in December, the EU’s 28 member states would have 20 months to apply these new norms and that countries “could choose to raise the quota from the 30% minimum to 40%.” EU nations can each choose whether the 30% includes sub-quotas on original productions in their countries and whether they want to follow the German model of adding a small surcharge on streamer subscription fees to support the national production fund."
source:
https://variety.com/2018/film/...
" Germany, 30% German 70% anything else" the way I read it is different , it would be " Germany, 30% EU sourced 70% anything else".
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The proposals will require that streaming services give over at least 30% of their on-demand catalogues to original productions made in each EU country where a service is provided (individual EU Member States could choose to set the content bar even higher, at 40%).
It could just be sloppy wording, and you may be right. But to me, why use the phrase 'original productions made in each EU country' if they just meant '30% EU original productions to provide services in the EU'. Why mention countries at all?
Also seems unlikely Germany would be happy with 30% French TV and vice versa. Germany already has a quota for German content, and they probably don't want that changed over to French under the new rules.
Even if you have every single localy produced movie in your catalogue, you will never reach 30% unless you remove almost all foreign production.
Forget the US for as second, but even china outproduces europe.
Please stop this now!
Coming from a relatively small country that produces only boring dramas and cheap, cheesy wannabe-hollywoodesque crap, this would be the end of all decent programming. Since my country is so small, there isn't enough titles to form the 30%, so Netflix and HBO would have to make up for it by removing existing titles and replacing it with utter shite.
NOOO!!!!
Lemon curry???
> The EU lawmakers' intention is to stand up for cultural diversity against the might of Hollywood
Good idea. Today Hollywood is dominated and ruled by the jews who are an excessively violent and lewd minded race, so their movies are totally about glorifying homicide and sex, even though those things are negligible aspects of real human life. Europe doesn't want any more of the ultra-violent, pro-murder, pro-fornication, abdomenal jokes based Hollywood farce, which is essentially derived from the blood-thirsty and lewd and perverted Old Testament and Talmud. Jesus Christ teaches us to love neighbours and refrain from lewdness even in our thoughts. We need humanistic movies and television, which promote culture, love and respect of nature and a general peace and understanding within the society. The jews exploit the bigoted nature of north-american protestants to keep USA a morally lewd and ultra-violent society for the detriment of all.
This is a crazy leftist plan that will result in either hosting complete cultural rubbish to match the quota, or artificially limiting the catalog to match a quota. For god's sake, end this totalitarian EU before its too late.
Just register a dummy company in Europe, owned by for example Netflix, do the exact same series and films as now but attach 30% of them to the dummy company. Possibly include half a second of stock footage shot in Europe with each episode or after the ending credits of the movie.
If I wanted local I'd watch the crappy free to air.
But, but, but.... Cash Cab FTW! (/s)
The thing most comments here miss as they are based in the american view is that Europe is 28 countries (or 27+1 if the UK is counted) with 12 official languages and a very diverse culture. The reason for requiring local content is to stop cinemas, TV stations and in this case streaming services from being lazy and using the cheapest way to fill their content needs.
Netflix already produces a lot in Europe as that market is different, some countries have very little penetration in English-knowledge. As first language both German and French are more common in Europe than English and dubbing is preferred to or at least as common as subtitles in some regions (France, Germany, Italy etc.) but native language programming is preferred.
Of course the block buster movies and series are popular, but people tend to view other things as well.
Netflix buys "x" number of local cheap crappy films. (say 30 to make the math easy) then only offer 100 total films at a time to that local market. Change out the other 70 to have online what is popular, and never change the 30 cheap crappy local films.
Quota met.
Why not just leave it up to the countries to decide the quota?
I can imagine France and Germany wanting to apply something like this, but as many people here have stated, some nations just don't produce content that's very good to begin with.
I tend to rant.
Buy the cheapest, and stream at lowest bit rate. Comply to the minimum of the law.
Actually, the only people reviling cancon are Conservatives...if you are in the content creation business, be it movies, music or art, you *love* the cancon policy. As for producing nothing worthwhile..what about Rush? What about SCTV? What about Bryan Adams. What about Denis Villeneuve? What about Robert J. Sawyer? What about Shania Twain?
Canadian great Oscar Peterson was virtually unknown, except in select music circles, and would have been just an obscure pianist....but cancon has made him a household name!
Just because you can't see it working doesn't mean that it is not doing anything.
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
If people love it so much why do you need to pass all these laws and take all this tax money to promote it?
but when all the content is American gets a bit boring after awhile. There are some great foreign language shows on Netflix (Okkupert) but not enough of them. Can be hard to break into the scene now that everyone is moving away from TV.
You expect anyone to believe you hadn't commented for weeks, but this topic was so important to you you just had to say something.
But you didn't bother to read the summary...
You clearly didn't read the article...
You didn't understand or read my comment properly...
You didn't read the comment I was responding to either...
And now you want me to explain to you why you don't understand anything?
Do your homework. Come back with a sensible question. And maybe you can have a sensible answer.
We pass those laws because we are protecting ourselves from the Giant to the south. If we don't protect our cultural identity, we would have American culture overrun us.
As for why we take all those taxes...so people don't have to go bankrupt if they get sick, to start out with...
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h