Senate Committee — TRCM — Brief — 2022-09-14_trcm_brief_piac_e

TRCM / Brief / 2022-09-14_trcm_brief_piac_e

Senate Committees

Bill C-11, Online Streaming Act Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications Senate of Canada Notes for an Oral Submission of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre September Check against delivery Study: Bill C-11, Online Streaming Act Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications PIAC Oral Submission September The Consumer and Public Interest in Broadcasting 1.

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre ( PIAC) defines the consumer interest in broadcasting as: “ensuring that consumers benefit from access to a wide variety of programming in the broadcasting system that offers choice in an affordable manner.” 2. Unlike in 1991, consumers now pay for almost all broadcasting, whether with money or with personal information, including online subscriptions, “cable” TV and video on demand, delivered by a BDU or “over the top” via Internet. 3. Consumers are now a key stakeholder in this debate; we are equal in importance to creators, platforms and producers.

Online Undertakings Should Support CanCon – Within Reason 4. We believe extending CanCon financial support requirements to “online services” (such as Netflix or Amazon Prime) and even ‘social media’ platforms such as YouTube and Facebook – when used as ‘program’ distributors – is generally supported by Canadians. 5.

However, the Bill grants the CRTC discretion to set the financial and potential other obligations of “online undertaking” registrants, no matter their size or type, provided they distribute any ‘programs’ which the CRTC decides to regulate, which could be overbroad and involve even small users/creators .

To solve this, we support an amendment to the Bill exempting online undertakings below a Canadian revenues threshold: platforms at $150 million and a separate revenues threshold exempting from regulation programs of users/creators at $50 million for audio-visual and $25 million for audio-only content These exemptions would be from financial or other content conditions. These thresholds would not affect the administrative registration or financial information requirements. Discoverability in Two Kinds 6.

Consumers’ naturally resist the insertion of CanCon in automated plays or algorithmic suggestions of platforms such as YouTube; and digital first creators are concerned that such discoverability tools will backfire and reduce their audiences. 7. PIAC believes this UGC problem can be addressed by redefining ‘discoverability’ as not one concept, but two: static and dynamic discoverability. Study: Bill C-11, Online Streaming Act Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications PIAC Oral Submission September Static Discoverability – A Reasonable CanCon Obligation 8.

Bill C-11’s only new mandatory broadcasting policy requirement is new s . 3(1)(r), which states: “online undertakings shall clearly promote and recommend Canadian programming, in both official languages as well as in Indigenous languages, and ensure that any means of control of the programming generates results allowing its discovery.” Clearly discoverability is key to the drafters and must stay in some form. 9. This policy objective mandates both static and dynamic discoverability. The first half could be satisfied by a banner on YouTube that simply links, upon a consumer click, to selected CanCon.

It is “static ”, unobtrusive and , likely, unobjectionable to consumers but still clearly “promotes and recommends” CanCon. Dynamic Discoverability – An Unwarranted CanCon Interference 10. The second half of the new policy objective is “dynamic”. It requires AI prediction tools to insert a CanCon video or song into a user ’s autoplay feature, or to ‘dynamically’ suggest links. It is intrusive and disruptive to the user’s expectations and experience. It is overkill to achieve the goal to “promote and recommend ” CanCon.

It is even more intrusive than “exhibition” requirements on traditional broadcasters because ‘online’ is a world of abundance of consumer choice – not scarcity where mandated exhibition makes more sense. 11. Digital first creators are rightly concerned that the Bill’s requirement to use dynamic discoverability will backfire and actually demote the importance of, and likely user engagement with, their content, as Canadian users who are involuntarily exposed to these ‘discoverability links’ avoid or react negatively– thereby signaling to the AI, globally and in Canada, to demote their content. 12.

The solution is to require only static discoverability tools and to require any exempted creator of Canadian content who wishes to have their content promoted, even by static discoverability, to apply to a new CanCon authorization authority (likely part of the CRTC). This will allow smaller digital first creators the choice to continue to operate untouched by this entire regime, which PIAC believes they want, or to have their content promoted in the limited sense of static discoverability. 13. PIAC recommends amending s. 3(1)(

r) to remove the last words – thereby directing CRTC to satisfy the Bill’s discoverability requirement with only static discoverability tools. 14. I welcome your questions.

Document details

Collection	Senate Committees
Citation	TRCM / Brief / 2022-09-14_trcm_brief_piac_e
Type	committee
Volume / chapter	441 / Brief / 2022-09-14_trcm_brief_piac_e
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	COMM_SEN
Identifier	0c3f021d301ce9318116a96895f7d6fef58a2b83

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