Senators pass ‘surgical’ change to Liberals’ online streaming bill to protect user-generated content

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OTTAWA — Senators have limited the scope of the CRTC’s powers over the internet in the Liberal government’s controversial online streaming bill, in an attempt to leave out the work of digital entrepreneurs and the bits and baubles of ordinary life that Canadians post.

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Sen. Paula Simons said the amendment was “surgical” in order to ensure Bill C-11 “actually does what the government has told us that it wants to do.”

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“The amendment is scoped so it only includes exactly the people that the government says it wishes to include, the large music producers, the Warner Brothers, the Sony and the like. It absolutely does not include social media.”

A majority of senators on the transport and communication committee, which is in the process of amending the bill, voted in favour of the amendment Tuesday evening. It was proposed jointly by independent senators Paula Simons and Julie Miville-Dechêne.

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodrigues has maintained that the aim of Bill C-11 — meant to set up the CRTC to regulate platforms like Netflix and YouTube and require them to contribute to the creation of Canadian content — is to target “professional” content.

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But critics have said the way the bill is written would allow the CRTC to regulate a much wider range of online content, and that if the aim of the government is to target, as it has repeatedly said, professional music on YouTube, then the language of the bill should reflect that.

Simons said the aim of the amendment was also to “limit the degree” to which individuals posting to social media platforms like TikTok and YouTube would be captured by discoverability rules, which impose conditions for the discoverability of Canadian programs and programming services.

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The discoverability provisions would allow the CRTC to force platforms to promote Canadian content, but creators have warned that forcing platforms to use their algorithms to push content that users aren’t interested in could end up backfiring and hurting creators.

The amendment eliminates a reference to regulating content that directly or indirectly generates revenue, which critics have said would cover essentially anything posted to online platforms.

Instead, it would require the CRTC to consider whether “the program has been uploaded to an online undertaking that provides a social media service by the owner or the exclusive licensee of the copyright in the sound recording, or an agent of the owner.”

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The amendment was developed in consultation with TikTok, YouTube and “also with all sorts of independent Quebecois music producers,” Simons said at the committee.

Skyship Entertainment CEO Morghan Fortier, who previously said Bill C-11 was “written by those who don’t understand the industry they’re attempting to regulate,” praised the amendment on Twitter.

She called it “an excellent start to saving (Canadian) digital creators.”

Fortier said while it remains to be seen how the CRTC “will consider the readdressed criteria, it is clear the Senators listened (and) gave sober, educated consideration.”

A key question around the amendment process at the Senate has been whether senators appointed by the Trudeau government, but who sit as independents, would support changes to the bill’s most controversial provisions. Both Simons and Miville-Dechêne were appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

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The committee has also made other changes to the bill, including two amendments to strengthen privacy protections. But it has also voted down other amendments proposed by various senators aiming to target controversial aspects of the bill, including discoverability.

The committee also unexpectedly added a requirement for online platforms to verify the age of users before they can access pornography. Age verification wasn’t part of the bill or the debate around the bill until Miville-Dechêne proposed the amendment Tuesday. Internet law experts warned the new requirement would harm privacy rights and is likely unconstitutional.