The Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) announced Wednesday it has joined with 19 other media production organizations from around the world to release a shared set of foundational principles that call on local governments to regulate global streaming platforms, safeguard national media production sectors and promote a vibrant global screen industry.
The group, representing tens of thousands of companies working across the global screen sector, includes CMPA, Alliance des producteurs francophones du Canada (APFC) and Association québécoise de la production médiatique (AQPM) in Canada, and 13 associations in Europe, as well as organizations in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Latin America.
The foundational principles in the group’s joint statement “underscore the cultural and economic importance of local, independent storytelling,” says a CMPA press release.
The group calls on national governments “to recognize domestic production industries as strategic national assets, to be cherished and protected,” the release says.
“This is about ensuring local stories are discovered, developed and told on screen, and not lost to a massive, singular global content industry,” Reynolds Mastin, CMPA’s president and CEO, said in the release. “The number of organizations from around the world that have signed on to this initiative is a vivid demonstration that the issues faced by independent producers here in Canada, are also confronting domestic producers in numerous other countries.
“On the one hand this underscores the significant scope of the challenges faced by domestic production sectors around the world, but on the other it provides a hopeful path forward; a path to work collaboratively across borders to develop common solutions that will bolster individual national sectors, while also creating a more vibrant global industry,” Mastin added.
Among the group’s foundational principles is one stating all platforms deriving financial benefit from conducting business in local markets should contribute financially, proportionally, to the creation of new local content.
The group also says independent screen businesses should own and retain control of intellectual property (IP) and rights in their work, “including the right to financially participate in the success generated by their work on a platform.”
In addition, any government-regulated investment framework “should specify that the majority of this investment should be fulfilled through projects where IP is under the control of independent screen businesses,” the group’s statement says. “This principle will assist businesses to remain strong and sustainable, thereby enhancing their capacity to invest in the development and production of new IP.”
The group’s full statement and the list of organizations can be found here.
