Andre Yoskowitz
29 Dec 2013 16:17
French independent broadcasting authority, the Superior Council of Audiovisual, says it wants to tax all media companies so they can contribute to financing French culture.
Because sites like Facecbook, YouTube and DailyMotion "fall into the same category as video-on-demand services," they should be subject to French cultural protection laws that include taking a portion of revenue from such companies to subsidize productions.
"These platforms have been developing partnerships with audiovisual publishers and content providers for years, with which they share revenues from advertising," the report noted.
The report also claims that the entire video-on-demand market has seen revenue grow to 252 million euro in 2012 from 97 million euro in 2009.
For the time being, the sites seem to be safe as the law can only be applied to websites based in France, which Facebook and YouTube are certainly not. The organization hopes to change the legislation soon to demand all video-on-demand services be included.