OTTAWA—Canada must act quickly to protect its cultural sectors in the digital age, critics say, as rapidly evolving technology creates a crisis for its arts and media industries.Unless Canada undertakes the kind of dramatic changes to digital copyright rules being contemplated in Europe, they say, our news, music and other cultural industries are in peril. “The government must ensure Canadian creators can continue to tell Canadian stories to Canadian audiences, and audiences around the world for that matter,” said Reynolds Mastin, president and chief executive of the Canadian Media Producers Association. He applauded some of the measures already introduced by the Liberal government, but said more needs to be done. “The alternative is companies from south of the border limiting our viewing options, and ultimately dictating what Canadians can watch,” Mastin said.“That’s not a pretty picture.”Read more:Canada slow to follow European Union action on tougher digital copyright laws‘Meme bans’ and ‘link taxes’: a copyright reform explainerCan Canada’s artistic middle class be saved?Opinion | David Olive: EU’s copyright reforms caught in tangled webThe rise of American digital giants like Google and Facebook has accompanied major changes in the way Canadians take in the news, listen to music and watch TV shows and movies.Yet while Europe is tackling the problem with a set of bold, if controversial, proposals, Canada has been slower to act: laws governing broadcasting and telecommunications were last revamped in 1991, and will not be updated until at least 2020.While the Trudeau government has started that review, and pledged millions of dollars in support for Canadian audiovisual productions and local journalism, the European Union is already considering dramatic changes to digital copyright rules that would protect its cultural industries and compensate creators.Pablo Rodriguez, who rep ...
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