On Tuesday, November 24, 2015 at 10:00 a.m. in the Copyright Board's hearing room at 56 Sparks St. in Ottawa with the Board’s new Chair, the Copyright Board will hear the first contested retransmission tariff hearing in 20 years. To somewhat oversimplify, the collectives want $2.00 a month per subscriber increasing to $2.38 by 2018. The Broadcast Distribution Undertakings (i.e. “BDUs” or cable and satellite companies) want to continue at the current agreed upon amount of $0.98 per month decreasing to $0.90 by 2018.The retransmission tariff results from Copyright Act amendments made in 1988 so that Canada could enter into the then new FTA with the USA. Along with the abolition of compulsory licenses for generic drugs, this was a very major concession to the USA in the FTA process.Canada, unlike the USA, did not spell out a formula in the legislation for what was to be a distant signal and left the mechanics of it all to the then new Copyright Board.…
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