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    Canada is imposing a 15% tax on streaming services to support local content
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    Canada is imposing a 15% tax on streaming services to support local content

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    33 Comments

    1. NewsCards on

      > Apple, Amazon, Spotify, and the Canadian branch of the Motion Picture Association challenged the framework in Canadian federal court in an effort to block or delay the levy. They are expected to continue pursuing legal avenues in response to the CRTC’s latest decisions.

      When you piss off big tech, you know you’re on the right track.

    2. BlockBannington on

      Belgium already does this and we have to play a minimum of 10 % local artists in the radio. Problem is that all of our media absolutely fucking sucks horribly

    3. Apprehensive_Lion748 on

      ah yes taxing consumers so they can fund content nobody asked for. piracy about to spike in canada

    5. kon--- on

      Good way to get subscribers to suspened their service then switch to downloading shows and movies.

    6. slingbladde on

      Local talent? Rogers and bell produced? Tax credits to make crap..crave is useless..let us pay for streams directly..abolish crtc and subsidies for the media corps..

    7. almostthecoolest on

      This could be a great thing for Canadian content and Canadian jobs if they get it right.

      But more importantly, they need to incentivize CBC, Telefilm, CMF, and all federal funding bodies to focus on audience results. They all try to be all things to all people and end up making a lot of stuff no one really watches. They do make a lot great stuff too, but there should be more incentives to think audience first.

      Still make art films. Still take risks. But if we’re going to make more Canadian content, let it be bold, let it be entertaining, and let it offend some people.

      Right now, we export less content than Iceland. That should be embarrassing.

    8. EmergencyComment101 on

      The amount of people frothing at the mouth about stuff like this and then they’ll turn around and tell you their favourite actor and when you look them up they will have come up in the industry through some publicly funded or subsidized system.

      If you ever find yourself having a kneejerk reaction to something then step back for a second, think about it more and maybe look into it a bit. If everyone did that before forming opinions or being outraged or offended about something the world would be a far far better place

    10. MoreGaghPlease on

      Not really a tax. It’s still the streamers’ money, they just have to spend it on Canadian production. The streamer will of course own the thing they make / buy with that money.

    12. wild_m1nd on

      Ah right. Maybe local content should increase its quality to be on par or better than imported no? Then the tax would not be required

    14. doublej42 on

      This headline is misleading and with all things I recommend reading the actual law. Canada has had this law in place for over the air content for longer than I’ve been alive. Portions of it go back into funding a lot of content you watch , even in the USA.

      If you see a BC or Quebec logo in the credits of a movie this was helped by these funds. Everything from deadpool to Linus tech tips is supported by this.

      It also helps make sure our languages are not deleted, we don’t speak en-us here but a lot of media does.

    16. gonewild9676 on

      Trailer Park Boys season 18 coming soon with the half of the cast that’s still alive and not in prison.

    20. MotanulScotishFold on

      This is so dumb.

      Instead of taxing to ‘promote local content’. How about just subsidizing local stuff into encouraging more and more to produce high quality stuff to actually compete?

      Let’s take for example, My country have an industry that only build dumb phones and another country industry produce high quality smartphones and of course people wants the best of the best but then the country decides that you should buy local to suport it.

      This is protectionism and not gonna work. You have to encourage innovation with better fiscality and education so new industry emerges and actually compete against imports to work.

    26. Putrid_Choice_7518 on

      Ofcourse tax everything to death 💀. We should look for ways to attract these businesses or invest in building these businesses locally and incentivize them to do so with conditions of local content development. 15% tax to then only means consumers will have to bare the cost.

    32. Wide_Detective7537 on

      A complete shame. Look what this law did to TV in canada? No one wants to sell rights to canadian broadcasters (or they do but only months to years later than everyone else) and the canadian content is garbage. I love policy that is a lose-lose-lose!

    33. Top-Pair1693 on

      Canadian content that is worth hearing doesn’t need to be subsidized, especially in the days of Youtube.