Blamblog - Brett Lamb's Blog

Thursday, February 19, 2009

CRTC & the Magic Mystery Money

Dead Things on Sticks has two great posts about the CRTC hearings and proposed internet levies. One thing he clarifies is that these hearings are only about "broadcasting in new media" and not a host of other issues that tend to get rolled in. I still think that using the word 'broadcasting' in relation to the internet keeps you from clearly seeing the issues ... but life ... goes ... on.

In the first post, he defends levies from the historical perspective and points out that levies have worked in the past ... and uses the example of the Canadian film industry to show what happens when you leave a cultural sector industry to the wolves:

Canadian film distribution is to Canadian TV as a greasy piece of street meat is to Dinner at that hot NY Bistro that just got written up but is so cool that it doesn't even have a name.

That's because years ago, thanks mainly to tireless U.S. lobbyist Jack Valenti, our screens were chucked wholesale into the miasma of the American machine. Now, Canadian box office is counted as part of the U.S. Domestic box.

But, again, his perspective is skewed by the belief that "People are already making money on the net. It's just the people selling the pipe." However incorrect -- here, buy some picture frame elements -- it's a convenient view because you're absolved if nobody can make money over the internet.

The next post is a real barn-burner dealing with the realities of money and budgets and broadcasters:

"Well okay," the next argument comes, "you assess us a levy, and we're just going to pass it on to the consumer and they'll hate you because it's an extra tax." To which we say, you are given protected access to your market under the Telecom act. The government protects you from competition. Competition that might result in lower rates for you and me. And in the spirit of that, the tradeoff -- just as it was for Cable TV, and Broadcasters -- is that you have responsibilities to support the indigenous cultural industries. It is, in fact, part of your cost of doing business.

And it's followed up by some thoughtful comments:

Based on recent history I expect 90% or so of the money to go to the usual suspects and, also based on recent history, I expect them to do strange-counterintuitive things with it, things that won't work and then they'll go back to the CRTC and claim that 100 million just isn't enough and they need more (even though there are people doing interesting, creative and marginally successful things out there with no budget at all.)

He makes a good case for the levy and funding for creatives, and it's not something I'd really oppose ... it's just that I don't think that a fund like that would help as much as an attitude shift. Actually, what would really help is the fund and an attitude shift. And that shift has to be from the defensive view of the internet as a threat to an offensive view of the internet as a great opportunity.

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