Web broadcasting needs regulation, say Quebec content producers and distributors

A coalition of associations representing Quebec artists, producers, and distributors received an overwhelmingly supportive response to its call for greater regulation of Internet radio and TV broadcasting at an April 16 hearing of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage in Ottawa. Committee chair Clifford Lincoln and the other members were generally amenable to proposals to make ISPs responsible for supporting Canadian content and fighting piracy. The members also seemed receptive to calls that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) re-open its 1999 new media exemption order to find ways to encourage the creation of Canadian content online. PresentersPierre Curzi, Union des artistes (Uda) Jean Pierre Lefebvre, Association des réalisateurs et réalisatrices du Québec (ARRQ) Marc Ouellette, Société professionnelle des auteurs et compositeurs du Québec (SPACQ) Richard Paradis, Association canadienne des distributeurs et exportateurs de films (ACDEF) Annie Piérard, Société des auteurs de la radio, télévision et cinéma (SARTEC) Jacques Primeau, Association québécoise de l’industrie du disque (ADISQ) Claire Samson, Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec (APFTQ)In his opening remarks to the committee, Jacques Primeau, chair of the Association québécoise de l’industrie du disque, said new digital platforms are transforming the content industry, and the government will be forced to be pro-active on content regulation before imports, particularly from the U.S., are allowed to completely dominate the entertainment industry here. Lefebvre noted that 15 per cent of Canadians already listen to American Internet radio. He told the committee that Americans are already asserting control of new distribution mediums such as Napster, and that Internet retransmission has the potential to bring even more American programming into Canadian homes. In light of these developments, he said the government should take advantage of the "exceptional opportunity" represented by the committee’s current review of the broadcast system. "The view that it’s impossible to regulate the Internet has long been made a mockery of," he said. "It should be evolving in a regulated fashion." Towards the end of the coalition’s allotted time, and under pressure by committee members to provide concrete examples of how regulation might take shape, Union des artistes chair Pierre Curzi outlined a plan which encompassed greater efforts to educate consumers about copyright infringement, the need to make ISPs responsible for contributing to content production, the allocation of resources to create independent Canadian portal sites, and regulations to prevent copyright theft. Primeau highlighted the need for such action by citing statistics that indicate 88 per cent of Canadians who have Internet access copy music. "This change in habits means the music is free," Primeau said of the threat. Intervention to regulate ISPs is even more crucial in Quebec, he said, because 90 per cent of local production is done by independent labels without the large distribution networks and deep pockets of the major labels. Currently, he noted, one in five records sold in Quebec is made in the province, and he wonders whether even that number is viable in the long-term. He said ISPs are profiting by providing access and should be expected to help the industry. "These people have to contribute to this sector in Canada," he insisted. The government can help, however, by providing incentives such as funds for the production of local content. While the two-hour hearing wasn’t a lengthy enough session to delve into details, Canadian Alliance MP Jim Abbott seemed to speak for the majority of the panel when he pressed for workable ways to begin regulating the Internet. "Are there practical ideas?" he asked. "If it’s not possible at all, then we’ve had a nice intellectual conversation." Members of the coalition, however, weren’t ready to discuss concrete measures, preferring instead to highlight the importance of the issues. In response to questioning from Liberal MP Dennis Mills along the same lines, Richard Paradis of the Association canadienne des distributeurs et exportateurs de films asked the committee to open up the issue to the Canadian public. "Give us a mechanism," he said, "we’ll come up with the ideas." Linked to the need to ensure adequate Canadian content online through regulation, the group said, is the issue of foreign ownership. While some groups including the Canadian Cable Television Association have called on the feds to significantly increase foreign ownership level limits for infrastructure companies, the Quebec associations are dead set against it. Content and infrastructure are inextricably linked, they said, and raising foreign ownership thresholds would abandon the principles of the Broadcasting Act. "It would be tantamount to having a Trojan horse in the building," Curzi told the committee. "A distinction between medium and message is completely useless." He added that arguments by the country’s largest media companies that foreign capital is essential to survive don’t hold water in light of the heavy merger and acquisition activity of the last several years. "They all managed to easily find the billions of dollars necessary to obtain them." Committee members seemed receptive to the pro-Canadian message. For his part, Mills told the group: "I am very concerned about the way our sovereignty is disappearing before our eyes," before supporting greater regulation of the Internet, especially some responsibility by ISPs to support CanCon. The coalition’s comments about the increasing commercialization of American search engines clearly resonated with Wendy Lill, the NDP’s critic for culture and communications. She told the committee that she believes large corporations can guide the direction of the Internet. "Mega-groups are controlling the Internet? We don’t hear that. What we hear is that there’s endless choice on the Internet. I don’t believe it," she stated, before asking the coalition for concrete examples of how merger and acquisition activity is hurting the content industry. Bloc Québécois member Christiane Gagnon also expressed her belief that the Internet should be regulated and that Internet companies must share some responsibility for Canadian content, though she expressed disappointment that the Quebec coalition’s comments were largely in a Canadian context, without Quebec-specific examples. In response, Claire Samson of the Association des producteurs de films et de télévision du Québec indicated that Quebec actually enjoys some advantages. For example, she said the CRTC’s decision in 1999 to redefine priority television programming, which put other types of programming on the same level as drama, has had less impact on the production of drama series in the province than elsewhere, since Quebec’s broadcasters couldn’t easily replace locally made content with cheap American imports.

Web broadcasting needs regulation, say Quebec content producers and distributors

News | 04/19/2002 4:00 am EDT

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