Get the latest tech news
Canada Imposes 5% Tax on Streaming to Fund Local News, Diverse Content
Canadian Regulators are leaning on new authority built into the 2023 Online Streaming Act to impose a new 5 percent tax on streaming TV and music services like Netflix and Spotify; funding that the…
According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announcement, the plan should drive $200 million in new funding annually to local news and a variety of other public interest content: Huge contracts for the likes of Joe Rogan and Wall Street’s insatiable demand for relentless quarterly growth have more to do with streaming affordability than anything else, though in this case the services are correct in that they’ll simply pass the cost of the new taxes directly on to users. That said, real journalism (especially independent and minority owned) is consistently facing a funding crisis, and much of the conversation (both in the U.S. and Canada) tends to be centered around what isn’t possible, shouldn’t be done (usually framed around the interests of giant corporations), as opposed to actually fixing the problem.
Or read this on Hacker News
