Decision is sure to anger U.S. tech giants already fighting existing 5% base contribution in federal court
  • Voytrekk@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    1 day

    Good on Canada to protect their media industries instead of letting American firms drown them out.

    If you want to do businesses in a country, don’t complain when they ask you to invest a bit back.

    • ben@lemmy.zipEnglish
      23 hours

      This is just corporate welfare for our media corporations. If you think this is going to do anything other than just end up flowing up to the executives of Bell, Rogers, and Telus media then you are mistaken.

      • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
        21 hours

        This isn’t meant to be the be all end all solution to every single problem eey ore.

        It’s a specific mechanism that keeps money in Canada instead of drifting away.

        It is objectively a good thing.

        • SaltySalamander@fedia.io
          2 hours

          Do you thing the US is doing the right thing by tariffing the world? Because, functionally, the tariffs and this CRTC decision are the same thing. Enjoy paying ~15% more for streaming services moving forward, because that will be the end result.

          You are cheerleading direct corporate welfare for the entrenched oligarchy.

          • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
            2 hours

            The US tariffing the world to bring back domestic manufacturing is not a dumb idea on its face.

            The execution has been dumb and alienating but that is one of the few areas where it’s been baffling watching leftists flip from being anti free trade because it lets corporations siphon money and avoid regulation to suddenly being super pro free trade because Trump is against it.

            Free trade is what has hollowed out North America’s manufacturing industries. Corporations have used it to effectively send money to poorer countries where labour is cheap while getting paid bonuses for “efficiencies”.

            In a single country you can do things like set a minimum wage, with free trade companies can simply move manufacturing to somewhere with a lower minimum wage, pressuring governments to race to the bottom in terms of how badly they abuse their workers.

        • ben@lemmy.zipEnglish
          19 hours

          I don’t see this ending up as anything other than the companies effected increasing their prices to cover themselves (and then some) and then the adjusted revenue being taken as a tax and passed directly to the media industry. We’re just funnelling money to executives that will lobby for more money to be funnelled to them instead of them actually making a product that people want to use

          • masterspace@lemmy.caEnglish
            5 hours

            Some of that money goes into producing Canadian Content which employs Canadian artists and the broader Canadian arts industry. That’s better then that money going to Hollywood and supporting the American arts industry.

            Either way the benefits are just trickling down rather than going directly to artists, but with these laws more money stays local in Canada rather than going to the US.

            You are arguing about whether that money should trickle down or be given directly to artists and that is quite frankly, completely irrelevant given that both options here (the rates increasing or the rates not increasing), don’t effect that.

      • AstralPath@lemmy.caEnglish
        22 hours

        I hate being so pessimistic that I agree wholeheartedly with this.

        This needs to happen but I don’t have faith in the CRTC to do the right thing with the money.

        • ben@lemmy.zipEnglish
          22 hours

          There was a picture a few years back with the chair of the CRTC out for beers with the CEO of Bell - there’s just no chance in hell this money is going to actual people without getting really heavily skimmed by those execs.

    • cecilkorik@lemmy.caEnglish
      1 day

      If you want to do businesses in a country, don’t complain when…

      Complaining about things the government tells them to do on behalf of society is pretty much the foundation of every company’s whole business model at this point.

    • A_norny_mousse@piefed.zipEnglish
      23 hours

      Thanks for explaining, I couldn’t parse the headline. It seems so obvious now you did.

      Ah never mind me, mumbling…

  • Ivan Overdrive@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    10 hours

    This might be good if done right.

    When I was a kid, Canadian Content was a pejorative. There was a certain kind CBC drama that tended to be very samey. The historical dramas they produced were watched by the people with no other channels available, the people that wrote them, and that’s it.

    But if this money was put to making actual entertainment, not prestige works, then it might actually build up Canadian soft power like anime supports Japan.

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
      23 hours

      I wonder where he keeps his scythe. I know you like to keep yours next to where your heart used to be.