By Ahmad Hathout
Sports streamer DAZN is telling the Federal Court of Appeal that it is not sure whether it is obligated to immediately pay the base contribution amount forced upon it by the CRTC to support Canadian content funds.
The United Kingdom-based company filed a motion to the court last week seeking leave to intervene in an outstanding appeal against the CRTC policy for the purposes of clarifying whether a stay granted in December applies to all streamers or if must file for a suspension pending the outcome of the court’s decision.
“Providing this clarity with regards to whether the Base Contribution must be paid now, notwithstanding the Stay Order and the Challenges, is useful not only for DAZN, but also for similarly situated persons who are not parties to this proceeding, but who will nonetheless be impacted by both determination on this motion as well as the Court’s ultimate determination in this proceeding,” DAZN writes to the court.
The foreign streamers and standalone Canadian online undertakings making at least $25 million a year must pay five per cent of those Canadian revenues into domestic content funds as part of the CRTC’s implementation of the Online Streaming Act, which brings those previously exempted entities under regulation.
Some of the largest streamers, including Apple, Amazon, and Spotify, filed for and successfully obtained in December a stay of the order and a hearing, which was held this summer. The court has yet to make a decision on the matter.
The problem for DAZN, according to its filing, is that the relief requested by those streamers was not uniform. For example, Spotify asked for a stay of the entire CRTC order, while Apple and Amazon asked to be relieved of their own base contribution obligations.
“The Stay Order Reasons do not specify whose relief it is granting in the Stay Order, and DAZN notes as a preliminary point, that it was within this Court’s power to extend the Stay Order beyond the Stay Parties,” DAZN writes.
DAZN said in its filing that it will pay at least $1.25 million because of the base contribution decision. The streamer, which is not currently a party to the original appeal, had asked the court to make a declaration on the matter in September or allow it to bring a motion for an order extending the stay to itself. The court told DAZN that it had to first file a motion to intervene and then ask for clarification about the stay order.
The streamer said it is concerned that if it pays out the million-and-change and then later the court rules that the CRTC erred, it would not be able to recover the amounts, which the court acknowledged.
DAZN’s original request to the court last month came two days after the end of the first broadcast year in which the policy had taken effect and during a period in which the amounts would be paid out, notwithstanding the court-imposed stay.
Despite that, the CRTC’s vice president of broadcasting said earlier this month that some of the base contribution money collected from online streamers has already been released at their request.
