Business teams representing main report corporations and streaming platforms have a message for Canada’s telecom regulator: streaming just isn’t radio, and shouldn’t be regulated as if it had been.
“We write to you at present to strengthen an essential message shared all through the consultations: radio and audio streaming aren’t the identical,” said a letter from Music Canada and DiMA (the Digital Media Affiliation) to Canada’s telecom regulator, the CRTC.
Music Canada represents the nation’s three main recording corporations: Sony Music Leisure Canada, Common Music Canada, and Warner Music Canada. DiMA represents numerous digital media corporations, together with Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Spotify.
The teams had been responding to the CRTC’s current sequence of workshops on implementing new guidelines governing streaming companies.
Beneath these guidelines, streaming companies that aren’t Canadian-owned and have greater than CAD $25 million (approx. USD $18.5 million) in income in Canada yearly are required to pay 5% of that income into funds that subsidize Canadian content material and creators.
Beneath that plan, 1.5% of music streamers’ income would go in the direction of subsidies for native radio stations.
The rules, which stem from a brand new legislation – the On-line Streaming Act, handed in 2023 – echo earlier rules from the published period, which require Canadian broadcasters to pay in the direction of funds that help the creation of Canadian radio, TV and movie content material.
Each music and video streaming corporations have vocally opposed the plan, with some music streamers saying it’s essentially unfair to require streaming companies to subsidize radio stations, that are successfully their competitors.
In July, Amazon, Apple, and Spotify filed a authorized problem in opposition to the rule with Canada’s Federal Courtroom, whereas the Movement Image Affiliation–Canada, which represents Netflix and a number of main Hollywood studios, together with Disney, Paramount, Sony, NBCUniversal, and Warner Bros. Discovery, filed an analogous lawsuit.
On the CRTC’s workshops, “there was a transparent try to position the continuation of radio rules on audio streaming companies as an apparent subsequent step,” Music Canada and DiMA stated of their letter. “We don’t agree.”
The letter argued that Canada’s radio rules had been designed to handle the issues created by its huge geography, its “linguistic duality” (English and French), and the truth that house on analog radio is proscribed, making choices about what will get broadcast crucial.
Streaming has “none” of those issues, the Music Canada and DiMA letter said.
“Being pushed when it comes to every client’s particular person curiosity and exercise, it represents almost infinite hours of listening, an unlimited catalog of recordings, a plethora of languages, and has damaged down not simply bodily geography however worldwide borders as properly.”
“Not solely has streaming allowed Canadians to achieve the world in methods beforehand unimaginable, streaming has allowed Canadian artists with no residence within the conventional radio system to be discovered by their Canadian and worldwide followers.”
Music Canada and DiMA
Echoing an argument made earlier by corporations like Netflix and Spotify, the letter argued, in impact, that Canadian content material doesn’t want subsidization within the digital period.
“Three of the highest 10 songs streamed in India in 2022 had been by Canadian artists – a truth that may be inconceivable to the founders of our terrestrial broadcasting system,” the letter said.
“Not solely has streaming allowed Canadians to achieve the world in methods beforehand unimaginable, streaming has allowed Canadian artists with no residence within the conventional radio system to be discovered by their Canadian and worldwide followers. This has led to larger ranges of play on streaming for ladies and racially various artists in comparison with Canadian radio.”
Earlier this 12 months, Spotify stated that Canadian artists “earn extra from streams outdoors of Canada than they do domestically… Canada has been the third most profitable nation globally in exporting its artists by Spotify.”
“We will probably be unable to proceed funding lots of the applications which have come to depend on our backing, as we at the moment are required to allocate assets to satisfy the CRTC’s new funding mandate.”
Netflix
For its half, Netflix has lengthy argued that it’s already funding Canadian content material, voluntarily, by the manufacturing of TV reveals in Canada, and thru grants to numerous organizations that help Canadian content material creators. Netflix stated it has spent some $25 million on these applications, supporting over 1,200 Canadian administrators, producers, writers, and performers.
Nonetheless, in gentle of the CRTC’s new streaming charge, this seems to have come to an finish. Varied cultural teams came upon final week that Netflix could be reducing their monetary help, as a way to cowl the price of the brand new streaming charge.
“Regardless of our long-standing dedication, the federal government has chosen to not acknowledge our substantial help for the Canadian movie and TV sector,” Netflix stated, as quoted by The Globe and Mail.
“Consequently, we will probably be unable to proceed funding lots of the applications which have come to depend on our backing, as we at the moment are required to allocate assets to satisfy the CRTC’s new funding mandate.”
The Globe and Mail reported that various skilled improvement applications and cultural establishments are “in jeopardy” resulting from Netflix’s withdrawal, together with the Pacific Screenwriters Program, and Scorching Docs, North America’s largest documentary movie competition, held in Toronto yearly.Music Enterprise Worldwide
