Before 1990, cable and satellite companies delivered broadcast signals to subscribers for a monthly fee. The problem is, they weren’t paying anything for the use of the programs in the broadcast signals they delivered to their customers – program owners weren’t being compensated. The Canada-US Free Trade Agreement created a new right under Canadian copyright law – the retransmission right. Anyone who profited from providing a particular kind of signal (how it works) must pay a fee for the right to use that copyrighted material. A number of collective societies – including the CRC (founded by the Canadian Film and Television Production Association [CFTPA]) – were established to represent the rightsholders. Sanctioned by the Copyright Board Canada, each society collects royalties from retransmitters and distributes them to affiliates, the program owners they represent. (More on the CRC’s affiliates?) More history |
