Telus, Corus jockeying over PVR cloud storage rules

Corus Entertainment Inc. is taking issue with a request by Telus Corp. to have Parliament change the rules for storing personal video recorder (PVR) recordings on network servers, warning the server-space-saving proposal could hurt the video-on-demand market. Telus has been arguing that the current time-shifting exemption in the Copyright Act, which was added in 2012 to allow Canadians to record programs for later viewing, should be updated so cloud storage of PVR recordings is more efficient and less costly to network providers. But Corus is warning MPs against doing so, arguing the proposal could lead to PVR cloud services undercutting video-on-demand. Back in October, Telus officials asked MPs reviewing the Copyright Act to update the time-shifting exemption to allow companies offering NPVR -- PVR recordings stored on cloud servers -- to reduce the amount of recordings of the same content they host and allow sharing a single recording without facing additional liability. Antoine Malek, senior regulatory legal counsel at Telus, told MPs that to avoid liability as a network provider, Telus currently has to store different individual copies of the same programs made by each user because the rights for later viewing under the time-shifting exemption belong to the individuals themselves. “An NPVR service provider like ourselves might need to store hundreds of thousands, even millions, of copies of the same recording -- one for each user who initiates a recording,” he said at an industry committee meeting. “That kind of excessive duplication is unnecessarily inefficient and costly for the network operator, and creates no value for the rights holder.” But Corus, which did not testify to the committee, says doing so would "incent users to avoid paying for video-on-demand and home video versions of that content," and “deprive copyright owners of revenue,” according to its recently published committee submission. It said copyright owners have to negotiate rates for different “rights windows” to content, such as linear broadcasting or video-on-demand rights, but giving companies the right to record and store content online for multiple customers would give users the ability to “record hundreds of hours of programming” and “build an entire library of content,” thereby “driving down demand” in areas like video-on-demand. “The result of this would be to depress the value of certain Canadian rights windows and further erode the discrete Canadian rights market -- where territorial rights to programming from U.S.-based studios is secured -- further threatening to undermine a critical part of the Canadian broadcasting business.” Telus’ committee submission, also only recently published, responds to that charge, arguing the change would not undermine other business models or “present new competition to video-on-demand” services, and notes time-shifting has been around since the days of VCRs. “The ability to time-shift has had no material impact on the consumer demand for VOD services in Canada, as evidenced by the creation and growth of VOD services both by incumbent broadcast distribution undertakings ... and by newer over-the-top services," such as that offered by Netflix Inc., it said. “Both personal recording capabilities and the ability to access on-demand content that the consumer has not pre-recorded are services which can help combat cord-cutting trends by providing Canadian consumers with added value for their television subscriptions.” NPVR has been controversial among content creators in the past, since its litigious rollout in the U.S. and flared up as an issue for telecoms during copyright reforms in the Harper government. In the current copyright review, Canada’s big telecom companies have largely focused on pressing for new anti-piracy measures. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology has finished hearing from some 200 witnesses for its statutory review of the Copyright Act. The chair of the committee, Liberal MP Dan Ruimy, said he’s hoping the committee’s report will be tabled sometime around April or May next year. — With reporting by Kyle Duggan at kduggan@thewirereport.ca and editing by Anja Karadeglija at akarad@thewirereport.ca

Telus, Corus jockeying over PVR cloud storage rules

News | December 19, 2018

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Telus, Corus jockeying over PVR cloud storage rules

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