Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 145 posts

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#11

Post by version_five »

frumper wrote: post #6
kneebonian wrote: post #3

This is my biggest worry that as countries continue to add more and more laws the internet becomes more and more fragmented and soon instead of the internet we have the EUnet, the CAnet, the ChinaNet, the RussiaNet the AmericaNet, etc.

This sounds more like telling companies that sell to Canadians to put back into the Canadian economy and to support all Canadian customers, not just the easy ones. I'm sure it's nice to have Netflix pay Canadian taxes, but what is better is if Netflix helps create jobs for Canadians by using revenue that Netflix earns by operating in Canada. That seems reasonable to me for every country.

I'm assuming your not canadian. Canadian content is a tax we (canadians) all pay, being forced to wade through a sea of government approved crap to actually watch a good show. It benefits some small elite class of people, it's not for "difficult" Canadian customers.

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#12

Post by cryptoz »

mynegation wrote: post #5

As a Canadian, I am of two minds about it. FM radio is required to broadcast Canadian produced or performed music at least for 35% of the time. There are not too many, in absolute numbers, songs that are both Canadian and popular which results in few songs being broadcast to death. At least that was the case when I used to listen to FM radio. On the other hand, that legislation certainly helped Canadian artists.

So call me, maybe!!

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#13

Post by amscanne »

mynegation wrote: post #5

As a Canadian, I am of two minds about it. FM radio is required to broadcast Canadian produced or performed music at least for 35% of the time. There are not too many, in absolute numbers, songs that are both Canadian and popular which results in few songs being broadcast to death. At least that was the case when I used to listen to FM radio. On the other hand, that legislation certainly helped Canadian artists.

One subtle distinction: it has helped Canadian artists that are producing "Canadian Content" [1], not all Canadian artists. If you are a Canadian singer in a band with a song that was composed by your American band mate, you are SOL. The main criticism of this bill is that with richer media content, this line becomes increasingly ambiguous (e.g. see the rules for television [2]). It seems likely that the outcome will be a lot more power for Canadian media giants (via industry groups and trade organizations) and smaller Canadian creators will be worse off, with forced algorithmic priority given to "certified" content.

[1] https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/info_sht/r1.htm

[2] https://crtc.gc.ca/eng/cancon/c_cdn.htm

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#14

Post by alienthrowaway »

juancampa wrote: post #7
walterbell wrote: post #2

> The legislation requires streaming services, such as Netflix and Spotify, to pay to support Canadian media content like music and TV shows. Canada deleted their Youtube channel with 3,000+ digitally restored works of Canadian Content, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35716982

A similar law was passed in Venezuela in ~2005. It forced radio stations to play traditional Venezuelan music as a percent of all their airtime. From the only article I could find in english [0]: > The law can make listening to the radio an adventure in dizzying contrasts. One minute a disc jockey is playing American rap, and the next minute it’s flutes and fiddles from the Andean highlands. It pushed some local arti…

> It pushed some local artist to get creative and come out with some electronic traditional music, which frakly, sucked

You gotta start somewhere. I lived through a similar transition in a different country, I hated the law at the time for the same reasons. However, it lit a fire under the local music industry which now supports more artistes than before. The music now sucks much less, and the local subgenres are unique and wouldn't otherwise exist.

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#15

Post by threads2 »

capableweb wrote: post #8
mynegation wrote: post #5

As a Canadian, I am of two minds about it. FM radio is required to broadcast Canadian produced or performed music at least for 35% of the time. There are not too many, in absolute numbers, songs that are both Canadian and popular which results in few songs being broadcast to death. At least that was the case when I used to listen to FM radio. On the other hand, that legislation certainly helped Canadian artists.

Look forward to seeing the same thing on YouTube, Twitter and other online services from now on in Canada. At least 30% of the videos your feed contain will be from some Canadian "influencers" that the government approved. Regulation will continue being created to force content upon you until you start liking the content.

Government-approved, advertiser-approved - what's the diff? It's all garbage when it's being forced on you.

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#16

Post by frumper »

version_five wrote: post #11
frumper wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds more like telling companies that sell to Canadians to put back into the Canadian economy and to support all Canadian customers, not just the easy ones. I'm sure it's nice to have Netflix pay Canadian taxes, but what is better is if Netflix helps create jobs for Canadians by using revenue that Netflix earns by operating in Canada. That seems reasonable to me for every country.

I'm assuming your not canadian. Canadian content is a tax we (canadians) all pay, being forced to wade through a sea of government approved crap to actually watch a good show. It benefits some small elite class of people, it's not for "difficult" Canadian customers.

> online undertakings shall clearly promote and recommend Canadian programming, in both official languages as well as in Indigenous languages

That was what I was commenting about easy customers. Netflix has a lot of content in English, and I'd imagine French, but they'd need to also support Indigenous languages. Are you suggesting Indigenous people are the small cadre of elites in Canada?

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#17

Post by aflag »

capableweb wrote: post #10
kneebonian wrote: post #3

This is my biggest worry that as countries continue to add more and more laws the internet becomes more and more fragmented and soon instead of the internet we have the EUnet, the CAnet, the ChinaNet, the RussiaNet the AmericaNet, etc.

This is already the case, but it's not based by location but by languages. Spanish-speaking internet is vastly different from the English-speaking one, and so is the internet for Chinese, Russian, French, Portuguese speaking population. Every major language have their own corner of the internet. Anyone who is bilingual can tell you the same :)

Sort of. Most sites are available everywhere with the same content, the main exception being exactly netflix and other streaming platforms. Even though language is a barrier sometimes, it's not always. Translation software is getting better every day. Whereas, real time communication between people speaking different languages is not really possible (I can't think of a way for it to be smooth, really), but everything that can be done offline is already accessible by pretty much anyone who wants to give it a go.

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#18

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

juancampa wrote: post #7
walterbell wrote: post #2

> The legislation requires streaming services, such as Netflix and Spotify, to pay to support Canadian media content like music and TV shows. Canada deleted their Youtube channel with 3,000+ digitally restored works of Canadian Content, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35716982

A similar law was passed in Venezuela in ~2005. It forced radio stations to play traditional Venezuelan music as a percent of all their airtime. From the only article I could find in english [0]: > The law can make listening to the radio an adventure in dizzying contrasts. One minute a disc jockey is playing American rap, and the next minute it’s flutes and fiddles from the Andean highlands. It pushed some local arti…

Canada already has this law, for as long as I can remember.

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#19

Post by ekianjo »

mynegation wrote: post #5

As a Canadian, I am of two minds about it. FM radio is required to broadcast Canadian produced or performed music at least for 35% of the time. There are not too many, in absolute numbers, songs that are both Canadian and popular which results in few songs being broadcast to death. At least that was the case when I used to listen to FM radio. On the other hand, that legislation certainly helped Canadian artists.

And it brings no value in the end when English is spoken in many places outside of Canada

Re: Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada

#20

Post by aflag »

frumper wrote: post #16
version_five wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming your not canadian. Canadian content is a tax we (canadians) all pay, being forced to wade through a sea of government approved crap to actually watch a good show. It benefits some small elite class of people, it's not for "difficult" Canadian customers.

> online undertakings shall clearly promote and recommend Canadian programming, in both official languages as well as in Indigenous languages That was what I was commenting about easy customers. Netflix has a lot of content in English, and I'd imagine French, but they'd need to also support Indigenous languages. Are you suggesting Indigenous people are the small cadre of elites in Canada?

Does the bill single out netflix and amazon prime? Will the independent youtuber also have to support indigenous languages?
Post reply on HN