A group representing major foreign streaming companies told a hearing held by Canada’s broadcasting regulator on Friday that those companies shouldn’t be expected to fulfil the same responsibilities as traditional broadcasters when it comes to Canadian content.
The Motion Picture Association-Canada, which represents large streamers like Netflix, Paramount, Disney and Amazon, said the regulator should be flexible in modernizing its definition of Canadian content.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) is holding a two-week public hearing on a new definition of Canadian content that began Wednesday. The proceeding is part of its work to implement the Online Streaming Act — and it is bringing tensions between traditional players and large foreign streamers out in the open.
That comparison is apples to oranges. (They’re both fruit, but they’re different types of fruit.)
Both socials and streaming show videos, but they’re different types of platforms.
With social media that has videos, the users create the content, not the platform. Aside from so called Community Guidelines, they don’t control what’s created or by who. And as long as there are Canadians on the platform creating content then Canadian content is being created anyway.
Whereas with streaming, the platform controls what content is on them since they either license it from other companies or they create it themselves. They spend money on all of the content on their platform, so they should be able to budget out some money for Canadian content just like they do for American-based content or any other culture/country’s content out there.
They can’t be compared simply on the basis of ‘they both show videos’.
I’m just saying the divide between the two isn’t so clear, and things are still evolving. Things aren’t so clear for the CRTC either: