An assistant director stands by as a stunt car drives down Yonge Street in Toronto, during the shooting of the movie Suicide Squad on May 26, 2015.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
Streaming platforms will have to promote Canadian and Indigenous films and television shows not only in Canada but around the world under the new federal online streaming law, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission says.
The CRTC, Canada’s broadcast regulator, will be in charge of implementing the law, known as the Online Streaming Act, and is preparing to consult the public and interested parties on how best to do it.
In a consultation document published Friday, the commission says promoting Canadian and Indigenous content domestically and internationally and making it easy to find is one of its policy objectives. The CRTC is looking for input on how it can ensure streaming platforms “make Canadian and Indigenous audio and video programming available in Canada and abroad.”
Streaming platforms will have to promote Canadian films and TV in French, English and Indigenous languages.
The document says streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime must contribute to funds supporting Canadian film, TV and music.
It also says streaming platforms that make less than $10-million a year in Canada will be exempted from regulation under the streaming law.
The CRTC is also exempting video games, and says that it does not intend to regulate “user uploaded content on social media services,” such as amateur videos posted on YouTube.
The regulator also says it intends to explore what constitutes a “social media service,” to help it develop a clear understanding of which “online undertakings” fall within its jurisdiction under the new law.
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The consultation on an official definition of social media is bound to reignite debate over whether aspects of social media platforms will be covered by the Online Streaming Act.
When the law, originally known as Bill C-11, was being debated in Parliament, there was intense discussion about whether it would apply to social media content, such as videos posted by people making their living on YouTube. Critics said parts of the bill were so ambiguous they left the door open to regulation of user-generated content.
Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has said amateur videos posted on YouTube will not be covered by the law, though some professionally produced content, such as music videos, might be.
Mr. Rodriguez has said he plans to issue a ministerial direction to the CRTC that will instruct it to ensure the bill does not cover user-generated content.
Asked why the CRTC had issued the consultation notice before receiving ministerial guidance on the bill, commission spokesperson Valérie Lavallée said the regulator is ”moving as quickly as possible.”
“Once a policy direction is finalized, we will account for it and adjust any of our processes, if necessary,” she said.
Kevin Desjardins, president of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, said he is pleased to see the regulator moving quickly, “with a stated commitment to fairness and equitability between all players in the system.”
Scott Benzie, the executive director of Digital First, which represents people who post videos to platforms such as YouTube, has argued the government should have settled on a definition of social media before regulations were discussed.
The CRTC document refers to a section of the bill that caused controversy because of its ambiguous wording on whether the legislation covered videos posted by social media users.
The document says these clauses “provide for a rather complex set of exclusion provisions with respect to social media services and users who upload programs on these services.”
It says the consultation is aimed at helping the CRTC develop “a clear understanding of the online undertakings that fall unambiguously within its jurisdiction,” and that will need to make financial contributions under the new law.
It adds that “certain aspects of some social-media services may be a subset of a larger concept of what constitutes an ‘online undertaking.’ ”
“How should the Commission define ‘social media service?’ ” it asks. “What, if any, criteria should be used to assess whether an online undertaking is providing a social media service?”