This bit scares me. The view of an open internet isn't a 'late 1990s' view, it's the view it should always be.
The CRTC is arguing that Netflix is now a legitimate broadcaster subject to the same laws that govern traditional broadcasters.
Open internet doesn't mean unregulated and lawless.
In fact, we need quite a bit of laws and regulations to ensure an open internet.
Patently false in theory and extremely debatable in practic.
These things don't exist unless you make laws to protect them.
The net neutrality issue is largely due to government granted monopolies and subsidies during the internet revolution era of the dotcom days. Now you have to content with monoliths and a very high barrier to entry by competition.
The same constitution that is regularly ignored and shit on as part of standard practice?
The constitution doesn't mean anything if the government doesn't follow it.
We also don't need a government to tell us we have free speech on the internet; we have that by default. The only thing governments have the power to do on the internet is damage free speech (which they have done with great consistency).
Net neutrality? Maybe. You could argue that network provision is a natural monopoly and therefore needs regulation to keep it "fair".
Free speech? Absolutely not. There is no sensible way a law can make the internet freer (as in speech) than it is in the absence of law. Right now, any lack of free speech on the internet is directly due to laws. Please explain your reasoning.
Honestly, my heart goes very quickly to democratic free speech. And it's not the same thing. We only had it for a short period of time - the wealthy now have more speech again. Can you really have a democracy when speech isn't democratic?
Net neutrality: It's more complex than a monopolistic problem. I would suggest you look more into it.
Democratic "free speech" isn't free. Democracy implies the majority can vote to silence the minority.
The only speech that is truly free is anarchic, where no one can preclude anyone else from speech. That is why the internet, with its lack of hierarchy, is a particularly good vehicle for free speech.
I don't care much for IP, so we may disagree there. I think any system that relies on violent coercion to (try to) incentivize production is undesirable.
Additionally if noone is watching the Canadian shows how does the CRTC determine what % content they require netflix to provide.
The consumer doesn't choose what's on Netflix, they only choose what they watch. They don't choose what they pay for, they pay for what Netflix chooses. This is the same model as every content provider in Canada, which is why Netflix needs to abide by the same laws.
If not - then it's completely incorrect description of how Netflix works. They have one month for free - so you can check for yourself how exactly it functions, before commenting.
(disclaimer: I'm a happy streaming-only Netflix user for several years, and I do not own a TV, my cable subscription is internet-only).
Please explain how a user of Netflix chooses a "channel" and receives the streaming content of said channel without the need to continue to select content to watch.
Each show is not "essentially the same" as a channel. A channel is a curation of related content (by the curator's definition of 'related.') Obtaining a collection of all episodes of a series and making them available for customers to play on demand is pretty much the opposite of curation, in my opinion.
So I'm still not seeing how Netflix is a broadcaster by any existing definition of the term.
How is this a "channel" ?
A more accurate description would be: There is a limited library of content that Netflix licences and you can pick and choose what you watch from that library. This is, for the most part, nothing like existing broadcasters who have finite channels which have finite scheduling space. Thus when CanCon rules state X% of that space must be Canadian it has a clear meaning.
With Netflix, I suppose they could require that X% of the library be Canadian shows, but that seems pretty arbitrary.
In the end this is another example of how much the CRTC panders to the existing broadcast industry in Canada. Much as they did when people tried to subscribe to US satellite television providers. It is protectionism at best, corporate pandering at worst.
There could be several reasonable approaches. E.g. 5% of their content expenditures must be Canadian, whether or not it is watched.
I'll leave the discussion of whether this is desirable alone.
Netflix isn't a broadcaster at all. Netflix is unicast. And yes, that matters in practice, because broadcast spectrum is finite and broadcasters have to choose content on behalf of everyone. With Netflix the users choose what content is transmitted and can choose from arbitrarily many alternatives.
The specifics of the implementation aren't really relevant to anyone but lawyers at this time. The How is less important than the Why.
How questions: Does Netflix have licenses for all possible content? Do they pay it out at per-view level?
Netflix and other online streaming options are replacing traditional broadcasters who were legislated to ensure the continued survival of Canadian content.
The obvious big ones are Uber and Airbnb, but then we get into things like amazon and sales tax.
And then there are companies like Aero , who construct elaborate legal fictions (having a million different antennas does not change much if your service is functionally equivalent to any VOD service by cable companies).
Sometimes regulations are there because of an experiment we already tried, and no amount of iPhone app magic will change human nature on certain points.
A legal fiction is a legal story that doesn't actually match the literal facts.
There argument is a legal fiction in that it doesn't match the service actually being advertised and offered. The implementation doesn't matter, because the end result is rebroadcasting material to members of the public.
When the new company is small, everyone love it. Once it get big and more powerful, government will like to have more control over it and get/use/blackmail some of the power. It is power struggle.