For your consideration, we are proposing three amendments to the bill.
The first amendment would help ensure that Canadians own Canadian stories, meaning Canadian ownership of intellectual property and of all the rights that make up ownership of a Canadian show.
Unfortunately, that’s not what’s happening today. When a foreign web giant commissions a show from a Canadian producer, while on paper the producer gets to keep the copyright, the deals are structured such that the rights and the financial upside are expected to be given up. The result is that most—if not all—of the show’s revenue is vacuumed up by Hollywood for the life of the property.
An updated Broadcasting Act would ensure that Canadians share in the success of their own IP. In assessing the definition of a Canadian program, the bill should instruct the CRTC to consider the extent to which Canadians effectively own the full range of intellectual property in that program. In support of this objective, the CRTC would assess the extent to which online streamers and broadcasters are collaborating with independent Canadian producers.
When Canadian producers own the rights to their own IP, they reinvest the revenues that flow from that ownership into hiring more Canadian talent and developing the next great Canadian show. Owning our own IP also means that Canadians are in the driver’s seat when it comes to who tells our stories and where and how they are told. Quite simply, ownership of Canadian IP by Canadians is an assertion of our national sovereignty.
Our second amendment is about ensuring a healthy balance in our broadcasting system by requiring fair negotiations between buyers and sellers of content. The buyer side of our system is currently concentrated in the hands of the foreign web giants, as well as Canada’s vertically integrated telecom companies. These buyers hold an outsized advantage in negotiations with Canadian producers. The reason for this is simple. They are among the biggest companies in Canada—and, in some cases, the planet—while Canadian producers are overwhelmingly small and medium-sized companies.
With the deck stacked against them, most producers are forced to agree to a “take it or leave it” upfront payment. This means that with little leverage to negotiate meaningful ownership for the bucket of rights associated with their IP, producers risk not getting their shows made at all.