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Listening to the debate between the CRTC and Canada’s major internet service providers (news here, here, and here) during recent public hearings is a bit like overhearing a pair of Luddites discuss how the tiny people in computers make the World Wide Web work. ISPs such as Rogers and Bell continue to argue they provide nothing more than a “dumb pipe” through which web content imperceptibly flows (even though they’ve been “smart” enough to throttle BitTorrent downloads on smaller ISPs such as TekSavvy) and shouldn't therefore be expected to provide funds for the promotion of Canadian culture online.
Yet it’s hard to sympathize with the CRTC’s plan for a three per cent levy on Canadian ISP revenues. This method of allocating money to promote relevant, Canadian cultural material makes sense for cable television, which requires millions of dollars in capital and a CRTC license to secure a station. But levying ISPs to support Canadian content on the web, with its millions of user-generated blogs, news sites, multi-platform video and music sharing software, and often nothing more than Google AdSense separating amateur content-provider from professional, raises a few questions: how would an ISP be able to detect “trace amounts of Atwood,” as Globe and Mail columnist Ivor Tossell put it? Is broadband “packet-inspection” technology sufficient to identify Canadian content? Or should the CRTC stick to monitoring ISP-provided on-demand video? How would levy funds be allocated? Would levy money be pooled into a grant for Canadian content providers?
Remarks made by both sides this past week don’t inspire faith those questions are going to be answered in an intelligent, practical way any time soon. Rogers countered the levy proposal with plans for a Hulu-type video content channel that would only be available to Rogers cable subscribers (negating the need for an additional CanCon levy but requiring viewers to subscribe to Rogers Cable TV). CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein proposed using the dot-ca domain as a means of identifying Canadian web content (an idea that is ludicrously out of whack with how domain names work—see Michael Geist on the subject).
Asides like these have reduced the debate and its implications for ISPs and Canadian internet users to a muddle of on-the-spot proposals, jaw-dropping ignorance about the complex nature of the internet, and litigation threats—several ISPs have already stated they will challenge any CRTC levy in court for violating the Broadcast Act. Meanwhile problems of copyright, cultural content, and artist remuneration remain unresolved. Both ISPs and the CRTC will have to move beyond “the internet is not a big truck” stage before we can expect some realistic, industry-led solutions to these challenges.
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This method of allocating money to promote relevant, Canadian cultural material makes sense for cable television, which requires millions of dollars in capital and a CRTC license to secure a station. But levying ISPs to support Canadian content on the web...
The cost of video production doesn't change whether you distribute that video on HBO or on Hulu, though. It's distribution costs that change. That's different.
How would an ISP be able to detect “trace amounts of Atwood,” as Globe and Mail columnist Ivor Tossell put it? Is broadband “packet-inspection” technology sufficient to identify Canadian content?
Why would it have to? Whether or not you continue to create funding for independent producers is one thing. How you figure out whether or not Canadians are interesting in what other Canadians put out there is another thing. They're in no way tied.
How would levy funds be allocated? Would levy money be pooled into a grant for Canadian content providers?
I mean, it's not rocket science, is it? Right now this levy exists, but only on cable and satellite. The funds go to things like the Canadian Television Fund, which does juried competitions. Heritage just merged the Canadian Television Fund and the Canadian New Media Fund into a unified Canadian Media Fund. Not sure it was done all too brilliantly, if you look at the details -- but it's an obvious candidate for handling at least a portion.
Rather than put it all into the Canadian Media Fund, it'd be interesting for them to create a seed fund for investing in Canadian content collaboration tool-builders.
CRTC chair Konrad von Finckenstein proposed using the dot-ca domain as a means of identifying Canadian web content (an idea that is ludicrously out of whack with how domain names work).
Yeah. But if you read the transcripts you see that this got explained, a bunch of times over, pretty clearly, and that they got it pretty quickly.
Or the CRTC can leave the internet alone and the government can begin to cutback on the levy on 'traditional' media.
Not that I want my internet bill going up (especially since I'm not getting what I paid for because of Bell manipulating TekSavvy's access) or want the government influencing content on the internet, but one way an internet CanCon fund might work is to treat is as a grant system. You (a Canadian) make regular videos, or you have a blog, and it meets content requirements, you can receive some funding after filing an application. It won't guarantee Canadians see your stuff, but it can help you continue to publish it.
Why should I have to pay for you to blog?
Because SOCIALISM SOCIALISM GIVE ME ALL YOUR MONEY FOR SOCIALISM
But really, try reading the first half of the first sentence again. Also: I'm not the CRTC or a blogger, just someone who pays for internet access.
hahahahaha
I loathe the CRTC.
I have dealt with them many time's, each and every time, and I'm being honest here, it was either someone from Quebec, or a person outside Canada, yes I'm serious, we have non-Canadian's having a say in what qualifies as Canadian content. I'm not talking people born in France for 2 months and moved over here as a baby, Im talking about nationalists from other countries brought in and working for the CRTC. The CRTC is total horseshit, and due to its inability to face reality and work logically with our culture and representation in the media it therefore needs to be replaced.