Controversial bill to regulate online streaming becomes law in Canada
cbc.ca
cbc.ca
Canada deleted their Youtube channel with 3,000+ digitally restored works of Canadian Content, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35716982
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 artist to get creative and come out with some electronic traditional music, which frakly, sucked.
Oh, and radio stations worked around the required quota by playing the mandated music very late at night.
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.
This was how France rebuilt its national cinema. Quotas work.
Such a strange concept. People like songs from "Region A" but we in "Region B" and want people to like songs from our own region. We do this by restricting access to "Region A"'s songs, not by making better songs in "Region B".
There is a similar system for film/TV where having a Canadian director, lead actors, writers,etc gets a certain amount of points and so on.
According to the government, Justing Bieber signing about “Georgia Peaches” and consuming drugs in California counts as Canadian Music and Culture (he was born in Canada). It's interesting to consider Justin Bieber's houses right here in California were purchased in part with Canadian government subsidies [0].
[0] https://www.velvetropes.com/backstage/justin-bieber-house
Musician Bryan Adams has been a vocal opponent of CanCon rules since the 1990s, and it’s largely due to the fact that the federal government keeps ruling that his songs aren’t actually Canadian.
https://nationalpost.com/news/extremely-canadian-media-that-...
But when you he cinemas were forced to show French film in. x amount of screenings, desperate not to lose money they started to fund the films themselves and make films that were as profitable as possible.
This led to a positive loop where 1. The cinemas would look for lucrative films to fund 2. Creating a demand on local filmmakers to make films that people wanted to see 3. Which became hits 5. Leading to cinemas looking for more French films to put on
Etc
There's a clear quality funnel here: In any creative work, we're really looking for positive outliers. Suppose talent is normally distributed. Increasing the size of the funnel's input means you've got more chances to find the best outliers. If you've got a very tiny funnel, most great actors and cinematographers will become accountants and bicycle racers instead of winning Oscars.
But not for TV? Is it maybe the fact that music has lower entry requirements for smaller artists to take off ?
While TV requires large scale production, thus if an overworked producer is making a “quota” product for TV, they might actually do what people are describing and rush something just for the 30% time they have to fill in.
It’s interesting because certainly it seems like there’s some relation to scarcity. The time on cinema screens is very scarce so the French cinema example seems to have worked. While radio, even though there are a lot of radios you still have some limits due to AM/FM bandwidth, plus radios differentiate with genres so 30% time on Canada radio means 30% time on rock, rap, jazz, etc.
But TV doesn’t work like that. So I wonder what factors played into the TV quotas not working.
The "90% bad TV" also happens everywhere, especially in the US. The number of CSI spinoffs must be really high.
One of the dangers from YouTube/streaming platforms in regard to French Canadian content is that the economics is just not the same. For example, Linus Tech Tips have a global reach since it's English content. M. Net (now defunct tech show in Quebec) or something similar would not even be closed to compete monetarily.
I like a bit of our culture from time to time (and also of France) but forcing it on people make no sense. Kids will keep on watching Youtube, TikTok all in english, that ship has sailed.
What is this rule?
https://www.emsb.qc.ca/emsb/admissions/eligibility/standard-...
It's remarkably convoluted.
Granted if it was just say a class about ... something, whatever, but picking the full time language for the school is a lot for someone else to decide for me.
I suppose the argument is that if the parents picked they'd just pick one and there's no choice but I'm kinda ok with that.
We often think of moving out of Québec/Canada to escape government encroachment in our lives.
A French Canadian expat here in the bay told me once "if our language is to die out, at least I'll make sure my kids are free".
I think had '95 turned out differently, some VCs here would be a little bit poorer, but the Republic of Quebec would have kept a stellar engineer.
> As an example I cannot send my kids to english school (because I went to french school) but my neighbor that is as french as me can.
Sounds these laws needs tightening. No reasons to operate two parallel school districts.
> Now if we could actually produce quality shows it would be great (right now its like 90% bad soap/romcom/cop shows)
Disney and Marvel made billions of dollars simply making content people want to watch and pay for, why not simply do the same and compete in the marketplace? Imagine how ridiculous it would be if there were quotas on iPhone sold so that BlackBerry still had a legally mandated market share.
> more money for culture in French.
By the state sponsored media?
Weren’t they making blatantly racist “historical documentary” (with taxpayers money) a few years ago? [0-4] Are people ok with this?
Aren’t the French Canadians notorious for buying and consuming their own culture? I work with a few French Canadians who have been here in the bay for decades and even their kids (born here in America) watch French Canadian content (on TikTok no less!). No need to subsidize it, they just seek it because they want to watch it.
When you make something that’s worth it, people simply watch it. That’s why Parasite won an Oscar.
[0] https://www.huffpost.com/archive/ca/entry/cbc-the-story-of-u...
[1] https://this.org/2017/07/19/where-cbcs-the-story-of-us-went-...
[2] https://etcanada.com/news/217608/cbc-issues-apology-after-th...
[3] https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/couillard-govern...
[4] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/cbc-apologizes...
This is unchecked capitalism and it is self-destructive (to the larger society) which is why it's necessary for anti-competitive laws and large breakups.
Not sure if we should go in to the debate of gov's role vs capitalism because that-can-of-worms^tm, but "pure market forces" is great, but only true up to a point.
Creators are breaking a million subscribers online simply by making content people like and want to watch. On a shoestring budget!
This comment just seems like a rant against governments and laws.
Quota laws are not that rare outside of the US. They were used in France to rebuild the National cinema.
There is no trend for the government to do what you’ve described, and they do is they create a positive loop between the distributors and content creators so more local content is produced and shown.
Let's see... popular music on FM radio in the US: The Weeknd, Drake, Justin Bieber... Shawn Mendes....
Yeah, 35% sounds about right.
Sam Roberts, Celine Dione, Nickleback, Avril Levine. Sounds disturbed.
Though I can't remember the last time I heard Gordon Lightfoot on US radio. Which is a shame - he is an astonishing songwriter.
(Not because it's Canadian, because it's on radio)
Might as well just listen to generative music at that point. At least that will have interesting moments in it when it enters the uncanny valley.
Regarding autotune, it's worth noting that one of the most famous users of autotune as a musical effect, T-Pain (who isn't Canadian) is actually an excellent singer (and for something unexpected, check out his cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs.)
Of course The Weeknd is in fact a successful songwriter, but I don't entirely understand the criticism of singers for not writing their own music. Certainly we accept that it's OK in jazz, in musicals, in movies, and at the opera - why not popular music?
So, how does this work on Spotify? Am I now required to listen to Nickelback?
It is plausible that the requirement would be something like 'insert at least 35% Canadian tracks' to any pre-canned playlist or 'song radio' sequence. I wonder how that would work with Gothenburg death metal playlists. I will probably get some Nickelback there.
And if that scheme is not sufficient, then we're talking about forcing people into consuming content that they wouldn't otherwise.
Bossing around entities on the internet to give special treatment to your niche causes is the new thing, is what everyone all of a sudden is giving themselves laws to do.
It just has such limits, pushing other people around to give yourself favor. How is the internet supposed to keep on, when every nation demands their pound of flesh, their personal asks?
In Canada the only unique thing here is the “on the Internet” component of your sentence. Canada has been bullying business of all sorts into all sorts of things under the guise of “culture” for decades. Apparently our culture is so weak that it can’t stand up on its own and needs the entire edifice of government to prop it up.
It's interesting to me that I live reasonably close to the Canadian border on the US side and yet literally the only Canadian media I know of is Trailer Park Boys / Letterkenny.
Though, i'd argue it has nothing to do with the fact that they should be taxed appropriately in Canada. It replaces revenue from TV distribution that was appropriately taxed. Similar discussion to whether we should tax robots labour i think.
Also, I think countries have the right to promote their own culture. That might be hard to see from the POV of the country who's culture is slowly boulderizing that of the rest of the planet.
(For folks that might not be familiar - Linus runs a pretty popular set of youtube channels and is based in Canada)
People think individually they know better than everyone else, so they vote for people who think that, too.
Leopards don't change their spots.
I doubt people are going to stop thinking they know better than everyone else any time soon. I hope so, but I doubt it.
Here is the best summary I've read so far:
https://allenmendelsohn.com/2023/04/welcome-to-the-online-st...
Digital first creators, Canadian YouTubers and TikTokers (ex Linus Tech Tips), stand to lose the most from this. Their livelihoods are under threat.
This is because of a clause in the bill that seeks to regulate user generated content. Months of senate testimony concluding that user generated content is in scope of the bill. The senate introduced an amendment to exclude user generated content, but the government rejected the amendment, while insisting this will not affect user generated content.
The heritage minister claimed in an interview that the only opposition to this bill came from YouTube. This is despite months of testimony from digital first creators expressing grave concerns about this bill.
Other facts to keep in mind about C-11:
1. The heritage minister gets to define Canadian content only after the bill has passed 2. Cabinet can overrule any decisions made by the CRTC, the Canadian equivalent of the FCC.
The former CRTC commissioner as well as the senate confirmed that user generated content is within the scope of the bill:
https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2022/11/oops-he-did-again-crtc-c...
It is traditional broadcasters that lobbied for this bill.
The senate heard months of testimony from digital first creators who believe this bill will negatively impact them. That's why the added the UGC amendment that the government rejected.
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?
As I said in another comment, the same is true for all of our industries. Instead of making stuff people want, everyone optimizes for getting government funding.
Ultimately, lots of Canadian artists and content producers will benefit, though other industries (software engineers, advertising, marketing, management, etc.) may be impacted. I'm.. kind of OK with this, but I wonder if the requirement will make these streaming services produce content that people aren't even asking for, just to satisfy the policy
So Netflix's taxes in Canada are not helping Canadians so far?
Anyone who is bilingual can tell you the same :)
Not to mention that depending on the language, you'll be using different websites. Not all Spanish memes are made for reddit or even Spanish speaking reddit.
A lot of American culture gets through to people who don't speak English. To the point of even adopting English expressions in their daily lives. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the internet is currently not as split up as you propose.
Heck, before I spoke English I'd play Ultima Online with people from the US. I managed to join a guild and interact with them in the 90s, with bad internet, bad translation software. Just by figuring out the game, picking a word here and there. I've seen people who don't speak Japanese interacting in Japanese communities by just using translators. When people have a shared passion or objective, language is really not a barrier.
His media empire has become absolutely massive.
For a quick crash course, find and watch Strange Brew, their feature film, which today is like a vacation in early 80s Toronto. But all the old SCTV shows are worth digging up, it had three different lives and each is fantastic, but different.
EDIT: https://archive.org/details/al-music/AL+Music+3.mp4 at 49:51
What does that means? If I upload videos on Youtube, then I'm probably in the clear. But if I make my own website with videos on it, am I still an "independent content creators" or am I now a streaming service in need of being regulated? How big I need to become before the law apply to me? Is this a new barrier to entry so the little guys are stuck with existing platform?
I see a lot of negativity regarding "The French" (their TV programs, their culture, and OMG their communist government?!?) and I just hate it every time I see it. The demeaning attitudes are hurtful, and don't usually contribute anything.
For anyone interested in a more balanced view, Michael Geist is law professor, research chair, and overall internet policy nerd. I highly recommend his review of the bill: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/04/billc11end/
It's also interesting to put what the Trudeau Liberals are doing in perspective. This is just one of three internet censorship bills that they will pass before 2026.
C-11 (this bill), will allow the Liberals to dictate what platforms show. Simply put, the books aren't being censored, they're just telling the book stores what should be on the shelves. It also adds what is effectively a new tax for content creators which the Federal government will distribute for Canadian content. Keep an eye for scandals about how these funds were distributed in a couple of years.
C-18 is the next one. In short, the Trudeau Liberals will implement another a tax on links, so aggregators such as Google may be forced to pay when they link to say the CBC. Google has already said they may simply stop linking to news services in Canada if they pass this, giving the government funded Canadian news agencies even more power. Good write up: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/02/billc18reality/
The Online Safety Bill - not yet formally proposed - will likely be the coup de gras. Not much is known yet, but given how easily you can censor anything under the guise of "safety" and the Liberal's proclivity towards extra-judicial action, it probably won't be good.
Overall, Canada's internet will look very North Korean by the time the next elections roll about. If you're visiting, you should probably have a VPN ready to go before you cross the border.
Oh, I see. And you're accusing the CBC of "bias"?
Aren't most Anglophone countries besides the US like this?
No need to go deep into conspiracy land for the bias.
It's completely fine to say that the CBC isn't biased, but it's not necessarily a conspiracy theory to say that it is.
It's all the exemptions and correspondence between the CBC and cabinet, the treasury board, and other arms of the government that is absolutely not made public in any way whatsoever:
https://frpc.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/2023-04-26-Hidde...
People love to pick on authoritarian governments in China or wherever but just look the other way and pretend it isn't true when it happens in Canada or Australia. The US will be in the same place in 10 years.
1) Read your sources
2) Avoid opening arguments with phrases like "the Trudeau Liberals" as the Liberal party currently holds a minority in parliament [suggestion: "the government"]
Otherwise you come off as someone with your own axe to grind.