from Hacker News

Canada says online streaming services must hand over 5% of their revenues

by moose44 on 6/4/24, 5:04 PM with 53 comments

  • by endominus on 6/4/24, 6:02 PM

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeWn3Sso2RE

    It's amazing that this South Park clip just gets more and more true every year. "Canada wants more money! Other countries get lots of money, we want some of that money. How about the Internet? Internet makes lots of money!"

  • by gustavus on 6/4/24, 5:33 PM

    Wow what is Canada's end game here? First they tell the search engines. Engines they have to hand over part of their revenue to legacy media. Now they're going after all the streaming services. Like what is their actual end game? Rather than trying to do something to improve their own economic situation, their solution is just a parasitically leech off of other countries. Large businesses. I mean there's a case to be made for ensuring that massive conglomerates better than appropriate tax burden, but there's got to be a better way than just hamfistedly slapping arbitrary revenue numbers on every service offered in the country, especially when it's already more expensive than across the border. I guess what I'm really asking is who is John Galt?

  • by OutOfHere on 6/4/24, 7:05 PM

    Canada and Europe are well known to engage in such mafia behaviors, seeking "protection money", in exchange for no real protection at all. If the companies pay now, they will only have to pay even more later.

    Taking it to court might help. If it doesn't, maybe the US federal government can intervene.

  • by tossandthrow on 6/4/24, 6:57 PM

    A countries main assets, beside land, is the attention of their citizens.

    Like my attention has a monetary value to meta (eg. To expose me for ads), equally so has all the attention of the citizens of a country.

    This is just the new generation of protectionism and toll.

  • by ca_ca_dot_ca on 6/4/24, 7:34 PM

    I see a lot of american voices seemingly unaware of the reach and control of their platforms. I see nothing wrong with forcing them to support the creation of local content in countries where they operate (in order to extract wealth).

    If those american media platforms (for which there are no local equivalents) want my canadian dollars, I'm ok with them having to re-invest some of that locally.

  • by ChrisArchitect on 6/4/24, 8:02 PM

    Related:

    Foreign streamers must pay into fund to boost Canadian content, CRTC says

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-online-streaming-ser...

  • by dangerboysteve on 6/4/24, 5:14 PM

    so, in other words, a 5% tax to the consumer.

  • by 486sx33 on 6/5/24, 4:05 AM

    Piss off Trudeau. I’ll pay 10x as much as the tax to get a vpn and watch US tv

  • by ChrisArchitect on 6/4/24, 8:00 PM

  • by Cypher on 6/4/24, 5:43 PM

    I still torrent so good luck collecting

  • by RegnisGnaw on 6/4/24, 5:45 PM

    This totally make sense.

    The Liberals under Trudeau is losing badly and will lose the next election. When the Conservatives and Poilievre come to power next election, they will cancel it for sure. Then the Liberals can attack Poilievre and the Conservatives for being anti-minority, anti-aboriginal and anti-French (where the money is suppose to go).

    Why do you think the buy back for the assault style weapons is being pushed back to the election? Poilievre and the Conservatives will cancel the buy back. The Liberals will attack saying the Poilievre and Conservatives are pro-gun nuts and are anti-women (banning guns is huge in Quebec due to École Polytechnique massacre).

  • by monetus on 6/4/24, 6:30 PM

    Eventually, propping up these news conglomerates is going to feel like taxing icann to maintain flash. Short-sighted idiocy, of one variety of another if regnisgnaw's comment is correct.