Are the CRTC and CMPA about to devastate Netflix’s hopes of succeeding in Canada?
As if Netflix doesn’t have enough constrictions from low-cellinged internet plans laid out by the oligarchs that comprise Canada’s telecom industry, NextWeb is reporting that Ottawa may very well kick the new-to-Canada video streaming service before it can even properly stand up in our fine country.
Quoth NextWeb:
Tomorrow, the Internet media giant Netflix, is the topic of a meeting in Ottawa where industry players will discuss whether or not Netflix will be required to pay online broadcaster fees in Canada.
According to our sources, the Canadian Media Production Assiociation (CMPA) is suggesting that the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television Commission) should be charging Netflix because it’s “undermining the Canadian broadcasters’ revenue model”. In other words, it’s too cheap.
The article notes that major ISPs like Rogers and Bell are hit with this sort of fee, since Netflix charges $8 for a service that many would prefer over other company’s $40 movie bundles. However, Netflix can only remain so popular—because of its streaming nature, users must be exceptionally wary of their usage, lest they go over their plan’s allotted data and pay overage fees with markups in excess of a staggering 10,000 percent. Meanwhile, Bell and the like offer customers packages invulnerable to such restrictive limitations.
So is there really undermining going on here? Or is this just more of the CRTC and Canada’s telco oligopoly creating an unbreakable monolith?
