OTTAWA – On Monday, the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage continued its study of Bill C-10, which would amend the Broadcasting Act, and heard from representatives of the Canadian Media Production Association, Reynolds Mastin, president and CEO, Erin Haskett, chair of the board and Damon D’Oliveira, vice-chair.
CMPA began by endorsing the bill, but with needed changes. “(1) empowering the CRTC to ensure fair deals between streaming services or broadcasters with independent producers through codes of practice; and (2) ensuring that Canadians continue to own Canadian content,” Haskett said.
The CMPA has proposed codes of practices or terms of trade to address the severe market power imbalance between Canadian producers and the likes of Netflix and others “Codes of practice would enable Canada’s independent producers to negotiate deals where they are able to hold on to at least some of the IP rights in a project they have developed,” said Mastin.
To illustrate the second point, he said “a quote-unquote ‘successful streaming deal’ for a producer today means this: They get a payment upfront. They surrender global IP rights. And—if they’re lucky—they become an employee on their own show, while forgoing future revenues.”
The producers’ group is also requesting ownership of Intellectual Property rights by Canadians be included as a policy objective of the Broadcasting Act.
