Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act, became law after the Senate gave final approval last Thursday, after nearly 3 years of regulatory hurdles and public controversy. .
Shortly thereafter, the law received Royal Assent.
The law amends the Canadian Broadcasting Act to require streaming services like Netflix, Spotify, YouTube and Disney Plus to pay to support Canadian media content, like movies, music and TV shows.
Platforms are also required to clearly promote and recommend Canadian content in English and French, as well as Indigenous languages.
A similar version of this bill was first introduced in 2020, then died on the Order Paper after Parliament dissolved in August 2021.
In February last year, Bill C-11 was reintroduced in the House of Commons by Liberal MP Pablo Rodriguez, leading to more than a year of heated debate between Liberals and critics of the legislation. .
“Online streaming has changed the way we create, experience and consume our culture, and it’s time to update our system to reflect that,” Minister Rodriguez said in a statement announcing the bill.
The Conservatives bludgeoned the bill, arguing that “government gatekeepers will now have the power to control the videos, posts and other content Canadians can see online,” adding that the bill poses a danger to freedom of speech. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, in particular, called the legislation Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “censorship law.”
Meanwhile, YouTube launched a public campaign against the bill shortly after its announcement, saying the platform’s recommendations section is designed for viewers to find videos they’d like to watch, but that the new legislation “would force the artificial promotion of one content over another, which could harm the views and revenue of creators”.
Minister Rodriguez, however, dismissed those criticisms and insisted that the bill will not affect user-generated content.
“The lengths the government was willing to go to avoid compromise still amazes me,” said Michael Geist, professor of Internet law at the University of Ottawa, adding, “It leaves either the prospect that the government wanted to retain the power to regulate user content (a real possibility) or that, pushed by a handful of predominantly Quebec cultural groups, it was unwilling to admit that it had made a legislative error. »
In fact, the House rejected an amendment that would have added protections for certain types of user-generated content, such as comedies and instructional videos, arguing that it could create loopholes for streaming giants.
Additionally, critics have deemed the powers given to the CRTC as a result of the legislation as unclear, broad, and potentially excessive. The bill specifies that the CRTC “may” issue various orders establishing, for example, “the proportion of Canadian programs to be broadcast that must be original French-language programs”.
“What this would actually mean for broadcasters is not yet known. Thus, certain aspects of this bill could have a considerable effect on broadcasting in Canada – or a modest effect, depending on the future decisions of the CRTC,” said a press release from the Canadian Senate.
The CRTC will also have the right to impose financial penalties for violations of the law.
The government is expected to issue a policy directive to the CRTC in the coming months to clarify the many areas of uncertainty in Bill C-11.
The fact that these clarifications are still needed after years of hearings and appeals is difficult to explain, Geist said.
He predicts that, in the future, digital creators will have to campaign for a hands-off regulatory approach, and “the industry will find that the law does much less than expected.”
The original article is available at IT World Canadaa sister publication of Informatic direction.
French adaptation and translation by Renaud Larue-Langlois.
2023-05-01 17:02:03
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