
Netflix refuses CRTC demand to hand over subscriber data - randlet
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/netflix-refuses-crtc-demand-to-hand-over-subscriber-data-1.2774921?cmp=rss
======
LukeB_UK
> _Netflix 's kind of late-1990s view of the internet as some unregulatable
> space was dragged into the 21st century and was put on notice," said
> Carleton University journalism professor Dwayne Winseck_

This bit scares me. The view of an open internet isn't a 'late 1990s' view,
it's the view it should always be.

~~~
abandonliberty
Yes, it's unclear.

The CRTC is arguing that Netflix is now a legitimate broadcaster subject to
the same laws that govern traditional broadcasters.

Open internet doesn't mean unregulated and lawless.

In fact, we need quite a bit of laws and regulations to ensure an open
internet.

~~~
nickonline
I'm not sure what Canadian content rules the CRTC is trying to enforce, but if
it's anything like 5% of content shown must be Canadian I'm not sure how they
can enforce that as a content provider where the consumer picks what they want
to watch.

Additionally if noone is watching the Canadian shows how does the CRTC
determine what % content they require netflix to provide.

~~~
Mikeb85
But with Netflix the consumer doesn't pick the content. They choose a
'channel' they want, just as they would on a normal TV. They don't pay per
show, they pay for a curated service and then 'tune in', albeit on demand.

The consumer doesn't choose what's on Netflix, they only choose what they
watch. They don't choose what they pay for, they pay for what Netflix chooses.
This is the same model as every content provider in Canada, which is why
Netflix needs to abide by the same laws.

~~~
ay
Is the parent comment a sarcasm ?

If not - then it's _completely_ incorrect description of how Netflix works.
They have one month for free - so you can check for yourself how exactly it
functions, before commenting.

(disclaimer: I'm a happy streaming-only Netflix user for several years, and I
do not own a TV, my cable subscription is internet-only).

~~~
Mikeb85
I've used Netflix... You've given no example or explanation whatsoever of how
I'm wrong.

~~~
delinka
What are these "channels" of which you speak? I choose specific episodes of
specific shows that I want to watch. There are no "channels," no curated
collections that just serially stream various episodes of varied shows.

Please explain how a user of Netflix chooses a "channel" and receives the
streaming content of said channel without the need to continue to select
content to watch.

~~~
Mikeb85
Each show is essentially the same as a channel. BTW, the current incumbents
also have Netflix-like services. Which are subject to CRTC rules...

~~~
delinka
The current incumbents are indeed broadcasters - they broadcast on radio
frequency spectrum their selection of episodes from a variety of shows. And
yes, they have features similar to Netflix. No amount of logic dictates that
such features offered by others automatically drags Netflix into the
"broadcaster" categorization. Taking such logic further would bring bloggers
into the "broadcaster" category should the incumbent broadcasters begin
blogging themselves.

Each show is not "essentially the same" as a channel. A channel is a curation
of related content (by the curator's definition of 'related.') Obtaining a
collection of all episodes of a series and making them available for customers
to play on demand is pretty much the opposite of curation, in my opinion.

So I'm still not seeing how Netflix is a broadcaster by any existing
definition of the term.

------
otoburb
>It was also told to hand over information related to the Canadian content it
creates or provides to subscribers.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) has a
mandate to determine whether broadcasters comply with their operating license
via a set quota of Canadian-specific content, along with Canadian-content
fees. This quote deals with the heart of the matter because Netflix was given
an exemption from being classified under the Canadian Broadcasting Act, and
one of the conditions to maintain this exemption was that the exempted entity
would share Canadian subscriber data.

I don't believe that Netflix needs to release specific subscriber details
(e.g. name, number), but would have needed to release anonymized details
broken down by province and potentially city. Since Netflix is choosing not to
comply _at all_ will make an interesting test of the CRTC's powers (which are
typically quite extensive). I wonder how Hulu and other streaming providers
are handling this?

A Financial Post article provides a little more detail around this point[1].

[1] [http://business.financialpost.com/2014/09/19/sparks-fly-
as-n...](http://business.financialpost.com/2014/09/19/sparks-fly-as-netflix-
balks-at-crtcs-call-for-subscriber-numbers/?__lsa=bf24-9ac9)

~~~
toomuchtodo
How can Netflix be described as a broadcaster? If I start serving streaming
video to Canadians from my home do I suddenly fall under CRTC jurisdiction?

~~~
otoburb
That's exactly the issue at hand! To answer your second question first,
streaming video over the Internet was at stake in a 1999 decision around the
distinction and definitions of the terms "old" vs. "new media"[1][2],
resulting in the "exemption" policy for new media that is now being revisited.

Getting to the root of your first question, the CRTC deems that any media
delivered to residents of Canada (i.e. on Canadian soil) is within their
jurisdiction. I believe most regulatory bodies operate on similar "boundaries"
(e.g. United States FCC), other than maritime bodies that need to delineate a
12-mile radius from their coastline to make the distinction between
"territorial" vs. "international" waters[3].

EDIT: If you happen to stream content to a private audience, I think you'd be
exempt just because you're too small of a target to go after. But if you tried
to scale your Canadian streaming operation up, you'll probably run afoul of
the CRTC without obtaining either a license or at least applying for an
exemption. IANAL.

[1]
[http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/1999/PB99-197.htm](http://www.crtc.gc.ca/eng/archive/1999/PB99-197.htm)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Radio-
television_and_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Radio-
television_and_Telecommunications_Commission#Regulation_of_the_Internet)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_waters)

~~~
toomuchtodo
>Getting to the root of your first question, the CRTC deems that any media
delivered to residents of Canada (i.e. on Canadian soil) is within their
jurisdiction. I believe most regulatory bodies operate on similar "boundaries"
(e.g. United States FCC), other than maritime bodies that need to delineate a
12-mile radius from their coastline to make the distinction between
"territorial" vs. "international" waters[3].

No. The FCC only has jurisdiction over broadband delivery (very limited, is
working to expand on this to ensure better service quality through the
country), telephone, and over the air programming through its regulation of
the RF spectrum.

What the hell Canada!

~~~
eli
Well that's not quite true. The FCC enforces rules against cable television
(requiring closed captioning, for example) and satellite. I think cable is
required to carry all broadcast stations as well.

~~~
toomuchtodo
I agree that I missed cable television regulation. Thank you. With regards to
satellite, that would fall under their regulation of the RF spectrum.

------
fidotron
Canada has simply relied on supply side regulation of everything too long,
while the Canadian market persists in wanting too many things which are not
Canadian.

This applies to music, film, TV, aeroplanes, and in the case of Quebec even
the spoken language itself.

Canada has to move to demand based thinking where if you want to sell Canadian
content you have to have a need-or-wants end market for it, not simply force a
quota of it on people that was produced with ever increasingly necessary
subsidies thanks to how out of touch with the end market it becomes.

Make Canadian content more attractive to everyone (including Canadians) and
the problem would solve itself.

~~~
anigbrowl
Agree in principle, but the fact is that most American content is subsidized
in one way or another, and most other countries also subsidize film and TV
production. From an economic view I don't like subsidies, but as someone who
works in indie film I'm not going to be purist about it if one helps me get
paid, it's difficult enough to fund and sell film as it is.

Cultural material is not a simple commodity that you can apply laws of supply
and demand to, because cultural products are not economic substitutes for each
other. This is one of the few areas where I think some protectionism may be
justified, because if you import all your media then it tends to crowd out
one's domestic culture, which in extreme cases can lead to social
fragmentation. If you don't have any kind of domestic media output then that
also limits your country's potential for tourism and inward investment.

I grew up in Ireland and although I was very interested in film from an early
age there was very little domestic film or TV production going on; maybe
30-40% of what was on TV came from the UK and >50% came from the US (cheap for
programmers to purchase given the tiny size of the market, and for political
reasons we did not wish to get too much of our programming from the UK). There
was only one TV channel for many years and it was quite demoralizing to
realize that how little cultural output of our own there was. Apart from a
documentary shot in 1934 by an Irish-American filmmaker, there wasn't a single
Irish-produced feature film for nearly _50 years_ , until 1982 (when I was
12), and even that involved an English director. The domestic industry didn't
really get going until the early 1990s.

As a kid, I would borrow library books and read magazine articles about film
production but even the notion of 'home movies' seemed impossibly remote - I
literally never saw a video or film camera until I moved to London. It didn't
occur to me to pursue a career in film as a youth because the domestic
industry simply didn't exist. Even with cheap digital technology available
today, making a film is quite an expensive undertaking - there's no guarantee
that filmmakers will simply bootstrap themselves as the inevitable result of
market forces.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Or every ethnic group isn't entitled to their own set of TV shows, movies, etc
especially if there isn't enough demand to justify it.

I think your way of thinking ties too closely with the failed multiculturalism
experiments of the 20th century. Trying to artificially make media fit for
various demographics leads to low quality media, tax increases, and ultimately
a certain level of isolation.

In the USA in the 70s and 80s, we tried this sort of thing. There was a cola
for black people, urban newspapers for the black community, we encouraged them
to go to traditionally black colleges, we encouraged them entering
traditionally black jobs, staying in traditionally black communities, staying
out of the suburbs, etc. Instead of trying to integrate them into the
mainstream, we isolated them. It was a disservice. The same thing is happening
all over the world, especially with Muslims immigrants. We can see the
multicultural mindset causing problems in Europe, especially in the UK and
France.

Even if we took your argument on face value, what then? Some kind of quota for
Irish directors? So we turn down an English director with great ideas and lots
of talent for some Irish director because you feel, as an Irish person, that
somehow you can feel his "Irishness" via his directorial decisions? So if he
made a sci-fi film about the future on another planet, you'll absorb some
level of Irishness from this? That's absurd.

I think its time we put multiculturism down and accept that a certain level of
assimilation is normal and healthy. If your entire cultural identity is at
risk from a Michael Bay film, well, that sounds like it wasn't too strong to
begin with. My parents were immigrants. I feel only a superficial connection
to their culture. I don't see why that's so terrible. Their great grandparents
came from another culture as well. The idea that we need to protect those from
a certain culture from change is highly questionable.

~~~
frandroid
This is not about creating content for every ethnic group in Canada. This is
just about creating Canadian content for Canadians. It's not about
multiculturalism, it's about supporting Canada's homegrown television and film
production sectors.

Also, I thought the 70s and 80s were about DE-segregating people. I thought
that's what the Freedom Riders went South for.

There is already more than "a certain level of assimilation" going around in
Canada, for example. Content laws are there to make sure it doesn't turn to
total assimilation.

~~~
Frozenlock
" This is just about creating Canadian content for Canadians."

How about American (not USian) making content for Americans? Or Terran, making
content for Terrans? Why this divide?

As someone who lives in Canada, why should I let someone else decides what I'm
going to watch?

Why should Québec and New Hampshire be so different? They are geographically
close. It would make sense for them to tend to become more and more alike. If
anything, those laws are artificially creating different cultures.

It's not 'assimilation', it's living with other people. Do you think of
yourself as 'assimilated' if you start playing the same games as one of your
friends?

------
bryanlarsen
As usual the best reporting of the issue is by Michael Geist:

[http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/michael-geist/crtc-
netflix_b_58...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/michael-geist/crtc-
netflix_b_5869106.html)

------
crazy1van
> "Netflix's kind of late-1990s view of the internet as some unregulatable
> space was dragged into the 21st century and was put on notice," said
> Carleton University journalism professor Dwayne Winseck, who characterized
> Wright's appearance as "theatre."

Yes, those terrible 90's where a massive industry was born thanks to the
internet. An industry that continues to enrich the lives of the entire
civilized world while creating tons of wealth. This nightmare must be
stopped!﻿ Seriously, there may be reasons for a regulated internet, but this
particular argument seems silly.

~~~
johngalt
Would politicians care about regulatory control if the internet wasn't
generating wealth?

~~~
adventured
Wealth, free speech, financial transactions, encryption, communication,
broadcasting, new forms of currency, data, spying, politics, public awareness,
social networks, file sharing, open exchange of ideas.

So many reasons for the modern, massive welfare state to hyper regulate the
Internet. They've resented the freedom it represents almost since the day the
Web was born.

------
smoyer
Is Netfix really a broadcaster? In the cable television industry, sending
content to a single subscriber or identified group of subscribers is often
called narrowcast.

------
roberthahn
I fear my comment will be lost in the weeds but here goes:

Why exactly does the CRTC need subscriber data? If it's Canadian content
they're worried about then maybe they should look at the content not the
subscriber?

And hey: I'm a subscriber. Don't I get a say in whether anyone but Netflix
gets to have access to it?

I probably wouldn't be so bothered if the CRTC wasn't made up of people who
used to work for Bell, Rogers etc… (conflict of interest?)

------
yawaramin
Bewildering. Netflix isn't broadcasting any programming at prearranged times.
They should be completely outside CRTC jurisdiction. As a Canadian subscriber,
I applaud their guts and hope they keep protecting my privacy.

~~~
hughdbrown
It does not sound to me that Netflix is interested in protecting your privacy.
If that happens, well, that is an incidental benefit.

"Wright said Netflix was concerned that private corporate information
submitted to the commission might later find its way into the public sphere,
which could make the service vulnerable to exploitation by its competitors."

~~~
yawaramin
But that's the beauty of market competition: those who protect their clients,
get loyalty from their clients.

------
patrickmay
Does Netflix have a physical presence (servers) in Canada? If not, isn't it
the Canadian ISPs who are technically "broadcasting" by allowing their users
to stream Netflix' content?

~~~
scott_karana
That probably wouldn't be a good precedent to set. :P

~~~
patrickmay
True. I was trying to think like a lawyer. That never ends well.

------
merrua
The set quota of Canadian-specific content being required to sell to Canadians
seems like a good idea.

------
Shivetya
sounds all very similar to what Netflix found in France. Though since this is
not broadcast over the air and user selectable I want to know how Netflix
content differs from any other web content?

~~~
scriptedfate
They get paid.

To do business legally in a country, you need to abide by that country's
rules. One of Canada's is the "Canadian Content" requirement of broadcasters
that says that a certain amount of content being broadcast in Canada to
Canadians must also be Canadian.

Whether the rule is dumb or counter-productive is immaterial at this juncture.
Rules is rules.

Netflix quacks like a broadcaster so it falls under the rule, no? Not quite.
There's a "new media" exemption that says, in return for giving the CRTC, when
asked, statistics on the Canadian consumers of your service, you can be exempt
from that particular scrutiny.

Netflix was asked. Netflix didn't give the information.

Now we see what the CRTC will do. It has every right to ask for an injunction
from the courts to shut down Netflix's Canadian operations. But it doesn't
want to, because Canadians like Netflix and bringing this to the courts might
just be the opening Netflix needs to strike down the information requirement
(allowing it to operate in the clear with no conditions until a new regulatory
framework is built and approved).

~~~
msandford
Broadcaster? Not hardly.

If Netflix were a broadcaster then at 8PM local time, everyone watching
Netflix would be watching the same show. Assuming that Netflix was only a
single channel, anyhow.

But hey, let's suppose that Netflix has not a single channel but say, 1000
channels. That's way, way way more than cable or satellite or anything like
that. Okay, but Netflix has nearly 7000 movies and a bunch of TV shows, so
it's not a 1000 channel broadcaster.

Let's say that Netflix has one channel for every movie and every show in their
collection. That's something like 10000 or more channels (which is way way way
more than any other broadcaster in the history of the world has ever offered)
and it STILL wouldn't work!

Why not? Because you can start watching a Netflix title WHENEVER you want. But
let's be reasonable, let's say that they'll run as many channels as they need
so that you never have to wait more than a minute to start streaming. Since
most of their titles are movies and a movie is on average around 90 minutes
long, that's 10k*90 = 900k channels.

There you have it folks! In order for Netflix to be a "broadcaster" you've got
to assume that they're roughly equivalent to a cable company with in excess of
900,000 channels.

If that could be considered "quacking" like something then I quack like a
billionare!

~~~
claudius
So you’re saying a billionaire should be exempt from e.g. income tax simply
due to being a billionaire and expecting them to provide a certain quota of
their income to the state would be unreasonable, as they have so much income?

I am not convinced.

~~~
msandford
No, not at all. I don't have anywhere NEAR a billion dollars of net worth, but
apparently being within oh say 5 or 6 orders of magnitude is close enough!

Most broadcasters in Canada broadcast on a few channels. The cable companies
operate a few hundred, but they make no decisions about the programming of any
one particular channel; they're aggregators.

In order to argue that Netflix is a broadcaster you have to fit them into the
"channel model" because that's what makes "broadcast" broadcast. On a
particular channel only one thing is playing at any one particular time, and
it's the same everywhere. So trying to shoehorn Netflix into that model you
have to make some crazy assumptions about how their service works (that aren't
right) and then you get a channel count approaching or exceeding a million.

That's patently absurd which nicely makes the point that Netflix isn't a
broadcaster. Do you know how much bandwidth it takes to broadcast a TV
channel? It's 8MHz. 8Mhz * 1mm channels = 8 Terahertz of total bandwidth if
they're broadcasting over the air, which according to all folks who are
reasonable, is what a broadcast is.

If Netflix is a broadcaster than so is anyone who operates any website which
doesn't block Canadian visitors. If they are going to go after Netflix I would
appreciate them applying the law evenly and going after literally everyone
else on the internet too.

