Canadian Policy Content
In April 2016, declared the policy framework “broken model” that had become insufficient to handle current issues facing Canada’s $37B media and cultural industry (Davis, 155). Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly declared the first such review in a generation, a comprehensive review of Canadian content policies. Minister Joly had it understood “everything is on the table” The report would cover significant policies on broadcasting, telecommunications, and copyright. It would also include critical institutions in the public media, such as Canadian Broadcasting Co. In 2016 and 2017, a nationwide consultation was held featuring more than 30 000 people.
When culture legislations must consider the creation, dissemination, and usage of digital material, it is necessarily tied up with media and telecoms policies. The rise of the multinational corporate platform economy challenges Canadian and other international cultural laws, which depend on local media to achieve policy objectives. Online content allocation is rising with advances; audiovisual production shifts away from traditional broadcast news and global digital service organizations in the content distribution sector have been critical new facilitators. Hence, it has become essential in replacing cultural legislation objectives and the capacity to achieve them in light of the global transformation.
The entire policy proposals on the CCPF become either in motion or in the pipeline in June 2008. Yet a controversial topic related to the so-called ‘Netflix tax’ has thrown a pall on the official answer by the CCPF, drawing emphasis on a particularly contested dimension of Canadian cultural policy: the separation of the domestic media landscape into a controlled traditional domain and an uncontrolled internet realm. Global multimedia entertainment delivery firms in the latter are excluded from foreign policy obligations and income taxes under which existing domestic media corporations are subject (Davis, 157).
This paper outline the impact of the digital technology policy in film production on cultural sovereignty. To determine how Canadian culture policy reacts to the global transition and its transformative effect on the art and culture industry in Canada, in particular the rapid rise of influential new international incumbents in content delivery. First, we summarize the current Canadian culture policy structure and the accompanying policy tools, stressing the centrality of broadcasting and film development in advancing the aims and priorities of Canadian cultural policy.
Canadian Policy Content and Transition
The Broadcasting Act specifies that the Canadian transmission structure “shall be readily adaptable to developments in science and technology. Government interventions have influenced the Canadian media system’s sensitivity to the waves of emerging communication technologies: Television, radio, mobile, Internet, and cellular (Armstrong, 201).
In a big bang, multinational cloud-based, multi-functional digital platform services that embrace database, software, storage, network, and processing, have developed fast. Such providers of electronic information appearance of services “tech companies that have morphed into media, like Google or Apple, or hybrid ‘tech-media’ firms like Netflix or Amazon.” Service providers delivering content will draw subscribers from domestic channels, cable, and satellite networks based on functions for quality, preference, convenience, and personalized playlist (Noam, 686).
Competition with them is only feasible, with a specific community of linked operations—a concept which the national telecommunications broadcasters cannot easily replicate. Lately, the functional importance of the change to network control comes to light. By market capitalization, Google, Netflix, Amazon, Twitter, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft, are among the world’s top ten most profitable businesses. Google and Facebook already catch an unprecedented 72 percent of the Internet 6$4.2B a year (Winseck, 137).
It is estimated that there will be more subscribers to over-the-top networks in Canada by 2020 than television subscribers. Many new over-the-top streaming services are developing worldwide. Netflix’s growth has proven that a broad distribution presence and a library of quality original content are vital ingredients of commercial success, contributing to pressure from major distributors such as Along Disney, Twitter, Apple, CBS, and Twitter, Amazon, DAZN, Hulu, and Netflix. For Canadian networks, competition for original premium programming is anticipated to push up the price of Canadian display rights (McCaughey, 110).
Nobody predicted the disrupted and replacement of some film production industries by the IT non-musical related firms in ten years. Creating a transnational information infrastructure environment controlled by a tiny handful of big, highly capitalized US-based digital technology network bodies experiencing very substantial sales of reach, causing a variety of growth prospects as dynamic economies. They are providing exceptional technological technologies that render their goods and services particularly appealing to customers and marketers.
It is doubtful that a domestic broadcaster’s computerization will have created companies like these. The high ground could only have been seized by IT-intensive companies with a constant commitment to scalability and investment capability to match. Such is “exponential” companies, in the way that Silicon Valley supports exponentially– The idea that modern companies, with a possible consumer base of hundreds of millions or more, ought to be built for robust scalability.
Disruption of fundamental communications infrastructure ultimately interferes with regulatory procedures. Prior scholars, like ourselves, emphasized the confusion that change brings as “the old [policy] tools, such as current national frameworks for direct assistance and domestic material control, can no longer operate,” but there is a lack of strong understanding of what to substitute them. The interruption of the controlled sphere entails the introduction of a de facto legal framework based on a platform: online platforms are regulatory systems far more than with most previous industries. Much further than in traditional monopoly sectors such as Electricity Company, today’s internet networks profoundly organize user-accessible laws and conditions of practice.
The big digital enterprises are no longer market participants. Instead, they are market makers in their fields, capable of exercising regulatory control over the terms upon which others may transact their products. They also plan to displace more constitutional positions over time and substitute territorial sovereignty with functional democracy. In operational venues, from office-letting to transport to trade, people are increasingly subject to capital control rather than public oversight.
As Pasquale (2018) asserts, “when government contract terms, private organizations bridge the void,” enabling national leadership of a legal system to be substituted by platform-based “responsive leadership.” An unusual occurrence of the eclipse of webcast-based history and culture by free digital platform services. The Creative Canada Policy Framework may exclude license holders from legislation or specifications if it recognizes that the strategic goals of the regulation are being met without regulatory oversight.
In 1998 The Creative Canada Policy Framework conducted several public meetings to discuss what was on what was known as “the new media” at that time to determine whether regulation was justified. The Creative Canada Policy Framework looks at the causes which later cause trouble: How to guarantee investment in Canadian digital media content? Where to ensure the material is visible? What effect does it have on conventional broadcasters? What are the consequences of advertising revenue? It concluded that Canadian digital media flourished, and it seemed to give traditional broadcasters prospects for development. Therefore, “impose certain regulatory measures to promote the growth, creation, promotion, and delivery of Canadian digital media products and services” was not appropriate. In 1999 the CRTC released an exception request for digital media broadcasting undertakings. There was a Creative Canada Policy Framework in 2008, which formed committee hearings to examine the digital media exemption policy as well as a more controversial cell tv exemption request.
It sought evidence that digital media had adverse effects on conventional media industries and Canadian audiences. Most parties to the following are copyright owners, broadcasters, or delivery undertakings, who were confident regarding film production capacity to impact their respective industries. Digital media is more of an advantage than a challenge and that it complements mainstream broadcasting by supporting programming and facilities, and creating audiences.
Participants demonstrated significant interest in having Internet Service Providers liable for contributing financially to the production of Canadian material and in allowing ISPs to ensure that Canadian content has shelf room. ISPs resisted on the basis that they are not broadcasters but only transmission pipelines, an interpretation that the Supreme Court successively upheld. Finally, it was apparent the technical difficulty of regulating content on the Internet from the broadcasting act’s developmental and social goals. The CRTC concluded that it would retain its digital broadcast exemption. In five years, the Internet and the condition checked.
The CRTC conducted a fact-finding experiment in the Canadian media network on OTT programming facilities in 2011. A pattern of preferences for the stakeholders emerged. Broadcasters claimed that a level playing field demanded a correction of the policy asymmetry, which exempted OTTs from contributing to culture proposed policies. Maker groups cautioned that increasing OTT services did not excuse rising cultural obligations for licensed broadcasters, but needed sufficient OTT player contributions. Netflix and Google protested in their submissions regarding OTT enforcement. Google suggested that it did not enjoy the regulation advantages that are given out in the operating system world of conventional media
The Creative Canada Policy Framework adopted several changes to the Digital Media Exclusion Order in 2012, including the provision that digital media broadcast supply details in the different periods on request to enable the CRTC to track digital media streaming growth. At the Government’s decision at the end of 2013, to prioritize media preferences, the CRTC initiated a high-profile meeting on production policies. This dialogue was mainly meant to challenging the broadcasters’ practice of demanding consumers to purchase specialized channel packages.
Highly known were 2014 Let’s Speak TV trials, with thousands of people and mobilized actors trying to publicize their opinions. In support of incorporating Canadian service procurement commitments and Canadian inventory responsibilities to OTTs, the general public, the artistic development sector, and the governments of Ontario and Quebec claimed. The private broadcasters challenged the exemption of international broadcasters from cultural policy responsibilities in favor of raising culture policy obligations on local broadcasters (Anderson 2016).
The “Let’s Talk TV hearings” contributed to the abolition of Canadian advertising limits during day hours programming, which added an excluded type of digital video-on-demand to promote the growth of Canadian streaming platforms. The problem of internet media regulation in Canada erupted in a sensational tv dispute between the CRTC and the spokeswoman for Netflix when the latter attempted to claim that Netflix wasn’t under the territory of the Broadcasting Act offers insights to the federal authority about its listeners, revenue streams, or web development. Likewise, Google decreased to provide the necessary information, causing the Commission to attack both of its evidence presented from the public record.
To summarize, Canada’s policy of exempting digital media broadcasting from cultural policy obligations and protections has been in place since 1999. This exception is based on the CRTC’s finding that new media programming has not adversely harmed or hindered the traditional domestic programming sector from achieving the public policy goals set out in the Broadcasting Act. That internet broadcasting and the distribution of web material supplement rather than replacing traditional television; and that digital media broadcasting thus poses more of an opportunity than a danger.
The Creative Canada Policy Framework (CCPF)
The analysis and data, Canadian concentration in a digital environment: Focusing the Conversation; positioning the increasingly global policy as dedicated to the promotion, not the protection, of Canadian culture; as a humanist system, i.e., not mainly incorporated in the broadcasting company; as an engine of economic growth, not as a sociological trend as an invested capital in producers and cultural investors; Not a subsidized; and as outward-looking, winning larger dominant market share.
The first theory, which reflects on users and producers, interprets citizenship as unfettered exposure to digital information, granting a voice to adherence to net neutrality and an open Internet. The way forward is not to try to regulate content on the Internet but to focus on how best protect the producers and cultural investors of Canada in creating great content and going to compete for both Canadian and international listeners worldwide. Raising a more significant slice of the global pie is crucial to creating a stable, sustainable artistic industry.
This includes exploring ways to cultivate and highlight innovative Canadian culture and make it discoverable through collaborations across the digital world, without resorting to material limits or investment mandates, two main instruments in the heritage cultural policy toolkit. The second definition, “reflecting the cultures of Canada and fostering stable democracy. It recognizes that Canadians as people value diversity, inclusion, local and regional knowledge, and the Canadian viewpoint. It presents a bold challenge: “a modern paradigm will promote viable business models that sustain accurate and effective output of news and local material.”
The third theory, “catalyzing social and economic progress,” assigns various social gains and spillovers to the artistic and cultural domestic industries and expects substantial development for the cultural economy. From now on, the arts and culture will become an ever-larger component of all productive economies. Again, the solution to challenges is not domestic consumption of Canadian cultural material, which would be vital to the potential survival of the cultural industry and its growth in “export and foreign markets.
The CCPF was released in September 2017 following lengthy discussions involving six national advisory meetings throughout Canada. It is a 38-page paper that draws on and expands the standard technique of the past for cultural industrialism (Edwardson 2008), introducing itself, Nevertheless, as ‘a modern outlook and solution to the creative industry and the development of the digital sector,’ and as a profound connection between artistic and cultural practices ‘the sector of the future.
The CCPF is structured around the three main structures already outlined in the consultation paper, namely: investing in Canadian creators and cultural entrepreneurs, fostering domestic and foreign exploration and dissemination of Canadian material, and enhancing Canadian public broadcasting and local news. As regards the first cornerstone – investment in creators and creative entrepreneurs – the current legislation raises direct support for the services in which creators depend. Including the Canada Media Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and it further extends the media sector’s exposure to technology-oriented services through the Strategic Investment Fund. Under the CCPF, the Government also guarantees to work with the significant cultural agencies in Canada to assign more financing to the producers and programming of native and minority languages, and digital experiments and creativity.
The Government signals that, in the long term, it would also seek to modernize the Canada Television Fund-the the largest regional audiovisual content fund funded by network levies and federal donations. Also, it will ensure that it has the resources and versatility it requires and adjusts its funding to the screen-based sector despite the continually shifting climate.
The CCPF further seeks to empower creators by developing new cultural environments. These innovation centers will help to cultivate and incubate the next wave of innovative entrepreneurs and start-ups in local businesses. Such centers can empower entrepreneurs to support themselves by supplying them with places where they can develop up their entrepreneurship talents, construct, interact and invent, and promote Canadian talent to drive new markets. As regards this pillar, the CCPF also announces that an assessment of the Copyright Act will be carried out by the Government.
Within the second cornerstone – encouraging the development and dissemination of Canadian material – the CCPF aims to conduct a study of both the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Acts. With the analysis of topics such as new age broadcasting and content production, net neutrality and cultural diversity, and how to improve the future of Canadian media and content creation. The reviews would also discuss the digital change and seek to promote accessible material and knowledge of relevance for Canadians, as well as the availability and access to telecom operators.
The CCPF presents a new platform into the toolkit of Canadian cultural policy: joint ventures with global platform companies. According to the paper, the Government would seek agreements from global internet providers that provide connectivity to Canadians and negotiate contracts with them. The Government states that such firms are supposed to be collaborators in and contribute to our aims by helping our creative industries grow by investing in production and distribution. The CCPF is opposed to implementing higher taxation on internet content that would raise the expense of such resources to Consumers. However, it is not explicit if the taxation applies to regional levies or income taxes that are generally not available to non-Canadians.
The CCPF renders exporting Canadian products a national goal by carrying out some main programs, including recruiting new trade officers and dedicating additional resources to export-related projects. Through the export policy, the State plans to collaborate with allies to improve on the world level the artistic identity of Canada and its producers. The Government would also seek to extend arrangements on audiovisual co-production around the globe. Within the third element, the Government aims to amend the authority of the public broadcaster following its analysis of the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Legislation. On the topic of local journalism, the CCPF reports that the Government should partake in a study and redesign of the Canada Periodical Fund that funds magazines and paying community newspapers to ensure it reacts to the needs of the business. Including the prospect of supporting digital-only media that is not currently being funded.
Concerning this third element, the Government again invokes the usage of alliances as a public development instrument, declaring that it “will collaborate with Internet providers to help jumpstart digital content production. So Canadian journalists and news outlets are best prepared to excel in delivering Canadians local and national news in the upcoming years. The Government further states that it requires these channels to be allies and to do more to facilitate the production and dissemination of important news and knowledge and that they have a significant duty to foster active digital citizenship
The Government is dedicated to sustaining or through support for specific core programs or organizations, especially the Canada Media Fund and CBC-Radio Canada. The introduction of news inside the area of cultural policy is entirely fresh. The emphasis on cultural exports makes what for decades was unofficial official. A new and untested solution to the system is the idea that associations, not legislation, offer the correct option for transnational audiovisual service distributors. There is no commitment to recapture domestic share of the market for any style of music, nor is the attention paid to telecommunications issues: access, sales prices or quality.