Freezenet has responded to the CRTCs call for interventions in the hearing regarding the Online News Act.
Last week, I noted how the CRTC has opened up a consultations on the implementation of the Online News Act. The hearing itself, ultimately, seemed like a complete waste of time and effort. Meta has dropped news links and government folded to Google agreeing to the platforms originally asked for $100 million fund model in exchange for the government not being known as the government that killed the Canadian news sector.
Those two developments have pretty much accounted for all players scoped into this legislation. Every other platform is considered “too small” for the government. Early indications suggest that Open Media won’t be filing an intervention with this one. Honestly, I can’t blame them. After all that has happened, this hearing seems like little more than a thought exercise more than anything else.
Still, despite that, I figured it would be worth a shot to go ahead and file an intervention anyway. For those who are curious to see what I said, you can see my comments in this PDF.
Much of the submission was spent talking about all the warnings us critics presented to government, how the government ignored those warnings, and the consequences that we predicted happening anyway. We also took the time to address some of the theories floated by supporters of the legislation who are still desperately to try and eek out some kind of “win” out of the catastrophic disaster that was the Online News Act. This includes the theory of using the Competition Act to go after Meta for leaving the news sector for, uh, reasons and like such as. To theories like that, I point out that there is no legal mechanism that I am aware of to compel Meta to restore news links.
While I did point out that there is very little the CRTC can do at this stage, I did offer a suggestion of what they can do. That suggestion was introducing an “opt out” mechanism for news organizations who never asked to be part of this fight in the first place (i.e. us!). Whether it is allowing news organizations to offer a free license or declaring that they are opting out of this sorry affair entirely, it allows news organizations to decide what how their news links can be treated.
A major problem with the Online News Act is that is simply assumes that if you are a news organization, you are demanding payments for your links, period. It assumes that no one out there is saying, “uh, actually, I like the way things were before. Can I go back to that?” In fact, it basically bars news organizations from taking up such a position.
So, the obvious question is, why would asking for an opt out clause be useful at this stage? Well, it gives Meta the opportunity to tell publishers that if they want to return to the platform, they would have to either offer a free license or agree to opt out of the mechanisms found in the Online News Act. That way, publishers that want to go back to the way things were before can do so. News publishers who continue to pound the table and demand payments for links can carry on with their silly campaign however long they want.
In short, though, it offers a chance that people’s news sites can be restored. I’m not saying that Meta would ever go along with this, but it offers a chance. Worst case scenario, Meta will flip the bird at the offer and we are no further ahead anyway. At that point, we can say, “oh well, we tried.” If the government doesn’t try this, then news links continue to be blocked anyway, meaning we are still where we are today. As I said in the submission, a long shot to reverse some of the damage caused by the Online News Act is better than no shot at all. So, what do I have to lose by proposing this idea in the first place?
What’s more, the chances of this modest, yet logical idea getting heard in the first place is extremely slim. I fully expect this idea to get tossed onto the pile of good ideas the CRTC chose to ignore. Still, what did I have to lose? Worst case scenario, I wasted an afternoon writing this thing and I got to write a news article afterwards pointing out that I did offer a solution to the regulator in the first place. Can’t say no one stepped forward with good suggestions at this point.
