A similar law was passed in Venezuela in ~2005. It forced radio stations to play traditional Venezuelan music as a percent of all their airtime.
From the only article I could find in english [0]:
> The law can make listening to the radio an adventure in dizzying contrasts. One minute a disc jockey is playing American rap, and the next minute it’s flutes and fiddles from the Andean highlands.
It pushed some local artist to get creative and come out with some electronic traditional music, which frakly, sucked.
Oh, and radio stations worked around the required quota by playing the mandated music very late at night.
> It pushed some local artist to get creative and come out with some electronic traditional music, which frakly, sucked
You gotta start somewhere. I lived through a similar transition in a different country, I hated the law at the time for the same reasons. However, it lit a fire under the local music industry which now supports more artistes than before. The music now sucks much less, and the local subgenres are unique and wouldn't otherwise exist.
Such a strange concept. People like songs from "Region A" but we in "Region B" and want people to like songs from our own region. We do this by restricting access to "Region A"'s songs, not by making better songs in "Region B".
Even beyond the treatment, the whole idea that you could not like the consumption preferences of individuals, and then game the system by mandating more of what you wished people liked is so dystopian.
A lot of those artists don’t count as Canadian content because the producer was American.
Musician Bryan Adams has been a vocal opponent of CanCon rules since the 1990s, and it’s largely due to the fact that the federal government keeps ruling that his songs aren’t actually Canadian.
It depends. There's a set of criteria called the MAPL system. it stands for Music, Artist, Performance, Lyrics. If 2 of those 4 things are Canadian then it's considered Canadian content. So if Bieber sings lyrics that he wrote despite being recorded in LA with music by a non-Canadian then its Canadian Content and the radio station can put it towards the quota.
There is a similar system for film/TV where having a Canadian director, lead actors, writers,etc gets a certain amount of points and so on.
According to the government, Justing Bieber signing about “Georgia Peaches” and consuming drugs in California counts as Canadian Music and Culture (he was born in Canada). It's interesting to consider Justin Bieber's houses right here in California were purchased in part with Canadian government subsidies [0].
Not nice to see that we are following in the footsteps of Venezuela. Beautiful country and great people obviously, but not exactly known for its alignment with free and democratic principles.
What a shame. I'd love those geniuses who decided to remove content to be sued for fraud or willful negligence at least for wasting taxpayers money this way.
The French speaking part of Canada of which I am a part of generally view this legislation positively since it does mean more money for culture in French. Money that currently goes toward English content. Now if we could actually produce quality shows it would be great (right now its like 90% bad soap/romcom/cop shows), otherwise the younger generations (me included) will just continue to watch US English content. If I want to watch good content in French I search for stuff made in France (ARTE on youtube, Backseat on twitch, etc).
Quotas are great exactly for this reason. In France before quotas in cinemas, the quality of the films was poor.
But when you he cinemas were forced to show French film in. x amount of screenings, desperate not to lose money they started to fund the films themselves and make films that were as profitable as possible.
This led to a positive loop where 1. The cinemas would look for lucrative films to fund 2. Creating a demand on local filmmakers to make films that people wanted to see 3. Which became hits 5. Leading to cinemas looking for more French films to put on
I'm not sure it always works. Canada has had this system in place for radio and TV for ~50 years. Radio has sort of worked maybe but TV? No way. Maybe once a decade there's a half decent show worth watching.
It’s definitely interesting to think about - why is it that it’s worked so well for radio, creating a big music and global stars coming from the Canadian music scene.
But not for TV? Is it maybe the fact that music has lower entry requirements for smaller artists to take off ?
While TV requires large scale production, thus if an overworked producer is making a “quota” product for TV, they might actually do what people are describing and rush something just for the 30% time they have to fill in.
It’s interesting because certainly it seems like there’s some relation to scarcity. The time on cinema screens is very scarce so the French cinema example seems to have worked. While radio, even though there are a lot of radios you still have some limits due to AM/FM bandwidth, plus radios differentiate with genres so 30% time on Canada radio means 30% time on rock, rap, jazz, etc.
But TV doesn’t work like that. So I wonder what factors played into the TV quotas not working.
But there's a massive industry of film shot in Canada. Start watching the credits and the supporting actors are very often Canadian, with projects shot in Vancouver or Toronto and 'local' hires to fill out the cast.
Which often or usually aren't considered Canadian content due to non-Canadian actors, writers, financiers, etc. so they don't contribute to the quota anyways.
It's an ecosystem. There's a need for Canadian Content, thanks to media regulations, which creates a little-league feeder of actors, producers, etc. Then the best of these are easily available to call on when outsourcing work from the US.
There's a clear quality funnel here: In any creative work, we're really looking for positive outliers. Suppose talent is normally distributed. Increasing the size of the funnel's input means you've got more chances to find the best outliers. If you've got a very tiny funnel, most great actors and cinematographers will become accountants and bicycle racers instead of winning Oscars.
(also french Canadian)
I think at this point we should accept that the french language will die out.
We are a tiny minority in a sea of english speaking, it doesn’t make sense anymore in the age of internet.
It has a huge cost for business and thus people and make us disadvantaged vs english speaking.
I just wish we would finally move on, but as french is fading, the government is tightening its grip, reducing the freedom of people to force french.
As an example I cannot send my kids to english school (because I went to french school) but my neighbor that is as french as me can.
I like a bit of our culture from time to time (and also of France) but forcing it on people make no sense. Kids will keep on watching Youtube, TikTok all in english, that ship has sailed.
My US based sense of "freedoms" gets really itchy when I read that ... like let me decide that, not sure I get why my kids have to be involved in someone's cultural type initiatives.
Granted if it was just say a class about ... something, whatever, but picking the full time language for the school is a lot for someone else to decide for me.
I suppose the argument is that if the parents picked they'd just pick one and there's no choice but I'm kinda ok with that.
The problem is that french canadians see themselves as oppressed by the english part of Canada.
They try with laws to force french in Québec as much as possible. Now with more and more immigration (rapidly aging population) and more english around with the internet they try harder and harder to stop the inevitable decline in french.
We often think of moving out of Québec/Canada to escape government encroachment in our lives.
If I understand the law correctly, you can only send your kid to English-speaking public school if you yourself went to an English-speaking school in Canada.
There is good content that is being produced in Quebec, you just have to look out for it and not expect Hollywood quality production. Xavier Dolan, Denis Villeneuve and Jean-Marc Vallée (rip), Monia Chokri and more, all started their career in Quebec thanks to legislation around creating French content.
The "90% bad TV" also happens everywhere, especially in the US. The number of CSI spinoffs must be really high.
One of the dangers from YouTube/streaming platforms in regard to French Canadian content is that the economics is just not the same. For example, Linus Tech Tips have a global reach since it's English content. M. Net (now defunct tech show in Quebec) or something similar would not even be closed to compete monetarily.
To me, having this government mandated content is simply bizarre, not unlike old soviet censors looking at movies and deciding what was “soviet enough” to get the approval from the bureaucracy.
> Now if we could actually produce quality shows it would be great (right now its like 90% bad soap/romcom/cop shows)
Disney and Marvel made billions of dollars simply making content people want to watch and pay for, why not simply do the same and compete in the marketplace? Imagine how ridiculous it would be if there were quotas on iPhone sold so that BlackBerry still had a legally mandated market share.
> more money for culture in French.
By the state sponsored media?
Weren’t they making blatantly racist “historical documentary” (with taxpayers money) a few years ago? [0-4] Are people ok with this?
Aren’t the French Canadians notorious for buying and consuming their own culture? I work with a few French Canadians who have been here in the bay for decades and even their kids (born here in America) watch French Canadian content (on TikTok no less!). No need to subsidize it, they just seek it because they want to watch it.
When you make something that’s worth it, people simply watch it. That’s why Parasite won an Oscar.
> Disney and Marvel made billions of dollars simply making content people want to watch and pay for, why not simply do the same and compete in the marketplace? Imagine how ridiculous it would be if there were quotas on iPhone sold so that BlackBerry still had a legally mandated market share.
This is unchecked capitalism and it is self-destructive (to the larger society) which is why it's necessary for anti-competitive laws and large breakups.
Not sure if we should go in to the debate of gov's role vs capitalism because that-can-of-worms^tm, but "pure market forces" is great, but only true up to a point.
Unchecked capitalism is when you let the companies grow and monopolize markets indefinitely; what does that have to do with simply respecting the customer preferences?
Perhaps 50 years ago these restrictions and quotas made somewhat sense because of the limited spectrum of frequencies to broadcast, but right now the entertainment market is more competitive than it has ever been!
Creators are breaking a million subscribers online simply by making content people like and want to watch. On a shoestring budget!
As a Canadian, I am of two minds about it. FM radio is required to broadcast Canadian produced or performed music at least for 35% of the time. There are not too many, in absolute numbers, songs that are both Canadian and popular which results in few songs being broadcast to death. At least that was the case when I used to listen to FM radio. On the other hand, that legislation certainly helped Canadian artists.
One subtle distinction: it has helped Canadian artists that are producing "Canadian Content" [1], not all Canadian artists. If you are a Canadian singer in a band with a song that was composed by your American band mate, you are SOL. The main criticism of this bill is that with richer media content, this line becomes increasingly ambiguous (e.g. see the rules for television [2]). It seems likely that the outcome will be a lot more power for Canadian media giants (via industry groups and trade organizations) and smaller Canadian creators will be worse off, with forced algorithmic priority given to "certified" content.
And I make no apologies for having never heard of either of them! Just not interested in music that's made from the ground up just to stick in people heads for a few days, personally. The art is gone, they follow a pretty basic formula. And they usually don't even write their own music except for the lyrics. And if you're lucky you might even get to hear their actual voice!
Might as well just listen to generative music at that point. At least that will have interesting moments in it when it enters the uncanny valley.
Well they are from Canada, and may not be to your taste, but I imagine you haven't seen them perform live - they're actually really good. ;-)
Regarding autotune, it's worth noting that one of the most famous users of autotune as a musical effect, T-Pain (who isn't Canadian) is actually an excellent singer (and for something unexpected, check out his cover of Black Sabbath's War Pigs.)
Of course The Weeknd is in fact a successful songwriter, but I don't entirely understand the criticism of singers for not writing their own music. Certainly we accept that it's OK in jazz, in musicals, in movies, and at the opera - why not popular music?
Meh, it doesn't really help Canadian artists, it helps the Canadian version of artists that want to produce something the government wants to support. Same as all business subsidies in Canada. We're just a pretend economy of government spending. Companies playing startup, people playing artist. None of it is viable or valuable outside the government spending bubble, and we'd all be better off if it just stopped. Except for the few ologopolists that want to keep their fiefdoms and ensure no real competition ever emerges.
Look forward to seeing the same thing on YouTube, Twitter and other online services from now on in Canada. At least 30% of the videos your feed contain will be from some Canadian "influencers" that the government approved. Regulation will continue being created to force content upon you until you start liking the content.
It feels to me like if the goal was to help Canadian artists who are "drowned out" by US media, it would suffice to launch a government-run non-profit streaming platform exclusively for Canadian content - then all people looking for it would know exactly where to go, and artists would get all the money that those people are willing to give.
And if that scheme is not sufficient, then we're talking about forcing people into consuming content that they wouldn't otherwise.
I think that's going to be the key here, how do you define "Canadian content" in terms of internet broadcast. Does this mean the government will be hand picking which content and producers count as Canadian? If standards are set, will they favor certain content producers with ties to the government. Right now the law is extremely vague and seems like it's tilted towards helping Canada's legacy media rather than small Canadian creators like Canadian youtube producers.
Ir would be indefensible for the government to pick people. It didn’t do that before on TV so why would it do that now ?
Quota laws are not that rare outside of the US. They were used in France to rebuild the National cinema.
There is no trend for the government to do what you’ve described, and they do is they create a positive loop between the distributors and content creators so more local content is produced and shown.
It is plausible that the requirement would be something like 'insert at least 35% Canadian tracks' to any pre-canned playlist or 'song radio' sequence. I wonder how that would work with Gothenburg death metal playlists. I will probably get some Nickelback there.
I both want diverse cultures to flourish & be celebrated but wow, this is not the way.
Bossing around entities on the internet to give special treatment to your niche causes is the new thing, is what everyone all of a sudden is giving themselves laws to do.
It just has such limits, pushing other people around to give yourself favor. How is the internet supposed to keep on, when every nation demands their pound of flesh, their personal asks?
> Bossing around entities on the internet to give special treatment to your niche causes is the new thing, is what everyone all of a sudden is giving themselves laws to do.
In Canada the only unique thing here is the “on the Internet” component of your sentence. Canada has been bullying business of all sorts into all sorts of things under the guise of “culture” for decades. Apparently our culture is so weak that it can’t stand up on its own and needs the entire edifice of government to prop it up.
> Apparently our culture is so weak that it can’t stand up on its own and needs the entire edifice of government to prop it up.
It's interesting to me that I live reasonably close to the Canadian border on the US side and yet literally the only Canadian media I know of is Trailer Park Boys / Letterkenny.
It's easy to understand when most popular streaming services here are foreign owned and have created a terrible image for themselves by producing barely any tax revenue for the country.
Well doesn’t that say more about the inability of the country to produce its own tech environment where their own citizens prefer media produced by foreign companies?
It's a free market. Of course, the US will have a lot more companies coming into Canada than the other way around in tech. It has 10x the population and massive amount of capital. So, yes, you are correct Canada is not competitive against the USA in that matter.
Though, i'd argue it has nothing to do with the fact that they should be taxed appropriately in Canada. It replaces revenue from TV distribution that was appropriately taxed. Similar discussion to whether we should tax robots labour i think.
Also, I think countries have the right to promote their own culture. That might be hard to see from the POV of the country who's culture is slowly boulderizing that of the rest of the planet.
This was also the topic of the first 20-30 minutes of last weeks Wan Show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSOF8RFrihM) where he also shared some anecdotes from his interactions with political folks in Cananda.
(For folks that might not be familiar - Linus runs a pretty popular set of youtube channels and is based in Canada)
I hate this.
Always more and more control from our government that know what is good for us!
I can’t stand this government and hope people wake up and switch at next elections.
Digital first creators, Canadian YouTubers and TikTokers (ex Linus Tech Tips), stand to lose the most from this. Their livelihoods are under threat.
This is because of a clause in the bill that seeks to regulate user generated content. Months of senate testimony concluding that user generated content is in scope of the bill. The senate introduced an amendment to exclude user generated content, but the government rejected the amendment, while insisting this will not affect user generated content.
The heritage minister claimed in an interview that the only opposition to this bill came from YouTube. This is despite months of testimony from digital first creators expressing grave concerns about this bill.
Other facts to keep in mind about C-11:
1. The heritage minister gets to define Canadian content only after the bill has passed
2. Cabinet can overrule any decisions made by the CRTC, the Canadian equivalent of the FCC.
Why do Canadian YouTubers have a lot to lose? Why are their livelihoods under threat? Why specifically excluding LTT? In your linked article there's a lot of emotion but not a lot of reasons.
It is traditional broadcasters that lobbied for this bill.
The senate heard months of testimony from digital first creators who believe this bill will negatively impact them. That's why the added the UGC amendment that the government rejected.
Companies might apply reciprocal arrangements to non-Canadians, demoting the Canadian content outside Canada, to make their stance obvious. Which would mean demotion of LTT.
This is my biggest worry that as countries continue to add more and more laws the internet becomes more and more fragmented and soon instead of the internet we have the EUnet, the CAnet, the ChinaNet, the RussiaNet the AmericaNet, etc.
This sounds more like telling companies that sell to Canadians to put back into the Canadian economy and to support all Canadian customers, not just the easy ones. I'm sure it's nice to have Netflix pay Canadian taxes, but what is better is if Netflix helps create jobs for Canadians by using revenue that Netflix earns by operating in Canada. That seems reasonable to me for every country.
I'm assuming your not canadian. Canadian content is a tax we (canadians) all pay, being forced to wade through a sea of government approved crap to actually watch a good show. It benefits some small elite class of people, it's not for "difficult" Canadian customers.
> online undertakings shall clearly promote and recommend Canadian programming, in both official languages as well as in Indigenous languages
That was what I was commenting about easy customers. Netflix has a lot of content in English, and I'd imagine French, but they'd need to also support Indigenous languages. Are you suggesting Indigenous people are the small cadre of elites in Canada?
Supposedly, the bill is for companies who produce their own content (just like the existing broadcasting laws) and not for companies that serve user-generated content (like YouTube).
YouTubers produce their own content, though. And they often are limited companies, as they need to pay an editor, receive sponsorship, etc. Sometimes it's easier to be a company, legally.
Cancon is content made by Canadians, not propaganda censored by the gov't. Are Canadians simply incapable of making a good show? Shitt's Creek tore through the Emmy's just a few years ago.
It's the government subsidies that make it shitty, because they're not merit based, they're based on selection criteria that align with whatever the government wants to push. Canadians could make way better shows with less government intervention.
As I said in another comment, the same is true for all of our industries. Instead of making stuff people want, everyone optimizes for getting government funding.
I think it's just going to lead to higher Netflix prices in Canada. The requirements honestly seem too harsh. 30% of revenue, not even profits.
Ultimately, lots of Canadian artists and content producers will benefit, though other industries (software engineers, advertising, marketing, management, etc.) may be impacted. I'm.. kind of OK with this, but I wonder if the requirement will make these streaming services produce content that people aren't even asking for, just to satisfy the policy
> I'm sure it's nice to have Netflix pay Canadian taxes, but what is better is if Netflix helps create jobs for Canadians by using revenue that Netflix earns by operating in Canada.
So Netflix's taxes in Canada are not helping Canadians so far?
This is already the case, but it's not based by location but by languages. Spanish-speaking internet is vastly different from the English-speaking one, and so is the internet for Chinese, Russian, French, Portuguese speaking population. Every major language have their own corner of the internet.
Sort of. Most sites are available everywhere with the same content, the main exception being exactly netflix and other streaming platforms. Even though language is a barrier sometimes, it's not always. Translation software is getting better every day. Whereas, real time communication between people speaking different languages is not really possible (I can't think of a way for it to be smooth, really), but everything that can be done offline is already accessible by pretty much anyone who wants to give it a go.
Translation software won't make you understand all the slang and idioms happening when communicating with people natively speaking the same language as you. "Hacemos una chancha" might literally mean "We make a pig" but that's not the meaning of it, and you'll miss a lot of context from conversations unless you're already aware of it, especially when it just looks like translation errors from the software rather than literal translations.
Not to mention that depending on the language, you'll be using different websites. Not all Spanish memes are made for reddit or even Spanish speaking reddit.
You miss a bit, but you get most of it. Many people use them successfully to watch YouTube videos, read articles, etc. You can usually find what a meme means by googling it.
A lot of American culture gets through to people who don't speak English. To the point of even adopting English expressions in their daily lives. A lot of it has to do with the fact that the internet is currently not as split up as you propose.
Heck, before I spoke English I'd play Ultima Online with people from the US. I managed to join a guild and interact with them in the 90s, with bad internet, bad translation software. Just by figuring out the game, picking a word here and there. I've seen people who don't speak Japanese interacting in Japanese communities by just using translators. When people have a shared passion or objective, language is really not a barrier.
Is he uploading videos to other websites than YouTube? Otherwise it's kind of missing the point. If you want to reach ordinary Russians (not biased by English-speaking ones), you probably want to upload videos to RUTUBE and vk, not just YouTube, as Russian-speaking folks use other websites than just YouTube.
Fun fact: The "Canadian content" requirement for broadcast was parodied by SCTV, who in order to fill the letter of the law aired a skit featuring two of the most stereotypically Canuck characters imaginable: Bob and Doug McKenzie.
Not just one skit. Bob and Doug are as fundamental to our cultural DNA now as Gord Downie. Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas reunite occasionally to do commercials for Mr Lube and stage video for Rush, and they never get accused of greed or whatever cause we all are just so happy to see them again.
For a quick crash course, find and watch Strange Brew, their feature film, which today is like a vacation in early 80s Toronto. But all the old SCTV shows are worth digging up, it had three different lives and each is fantastic, but different.
>The government has insisted that the legislation is not intended to regulate independent content creators.
What does that means? If I upload videos on Youtube, then I'm probably in the clear. But if I make my own website with videos on it, am I still an "independent content creators" or am I now a streaming service in need of being regulated? How big I need to become before the law apply to me? Is this a new barrier to entry so the little guys are stuck with existing platform?
The Senate put in an amendment to explicitly make that clear but the house of commons stripped it out citing "loopholes". So I wouldn't be surprised if any reasonably sized YouTube channel gets impacted despite being users of a social network.
Other countries should introduce a tariff on all Canadian content - fight fire with fire. I'm Canadian but I don't think such protectionist policies are ultimately helpful.
Whatever needs to happen so I don't have to listen or watch English or American shows all the time, I'm OK with that, and I assume these are my tax dollars working for me.
I see a lot of negativity regarding "The French" (their TV programs, their culture, and OMG their communist government?!?) and I just hate it every time I see it. The demeaning attitudes are hurtful, and don't usually contribute anything.
This is a CBC article so keep in mind its bias in favour of the Liberals who pushed this bill through.
For anyone interested in a more balanced view, Michael Geist is law professor, research chair, and overall internet policy nerd. I highly recommend his review of the bill: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/04/billc11end/
It's also interesting to put what the Trudeau Liberals are doing in perspective. This is just one of three internet censorship bills that they will pass before 2026.
C-11 (this bill), will allow the Liberals to dictate what platforms show. Simply put, the books aren't being censored, they're just telling the book stores what should be on the shelves. It also adds what is effectively a new tax for content creators which the Federal government will distribute for Canadian content. Keep an eye for scandals about how these funds were distributed in a couple of years.
C-18 is the next one. In short, the Trudeau Liberals will implement another a tax on links, so aggregators such as Google may be forced to pay when they link to say the CBC. Google has already said they may simply stop linking to news services in Canada if they pass this, giving the government funded Canadian news agencies even more power. Good write up: https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2023/02/billc18reality/
The Online Safety Bill - not yet formally proposed - will likely be the coup de gras. Not much is known yet, but given how easily you can censor anything under the guise of "safety" and the Liberal's proclivity towards extra-judicial action, it probably won't be good.
Overall, Canada's internet will look very North Korean by the time the next elections roll about. If you're visiting, you should probably have a VPN ready to go before you cross the border.
The CBC is biased because they'll be a significant beneficiary of the bill -- they're a big source of Canadian content that others can license, so this will help them get paid.
No need to go deep into conspiracy land for the bias.
Is it a conspiracy theory to assume that an organization is biased towards the source of its funding? Especially when the opposition has openly stated that they would cut it by a lot?
It's completely fine to say that the CBC isn't biased, but it's not necessarily a conspiracy theory to say that it is.
It's not the source of the funding that makes the CBC biased.
It's all the exemptions and correspondence between the CBC and cabinet, the treasury board, and other arms of the government that is absolutely not made public in any way whatsoever:
People love to pick on authoritarian governments in China or wherever but just look the other way and pretend it isn't true when it happens in Canada or Australia. The US will be in the same place in 10 years.
Geist's take is much less extreme than the one you are presenting. He suggests that the bill will be further watered down through policy consultation around 2025-26. You may want to:
1) Read your sources
2) Avoid opening arguments with phrases like "the Trudeau Liberals" as the Liberal party currently holds a minority in parliament [suggestion: "the government"]
Otherwise you come off as someone with your own axe to grind.
Canada deleted their Youtube channel with 3,000+ digitally restored works of Canadian Content, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35716982