Regulation of social networks, supervision of Netflix, Amazon, Disney + and other video-on-demand platforms, fight against piracy and hate online, protection of minors from pornography … Rarely has a regulatory authority seen its powers extend so substantially. 1er January, the Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) became the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom).
The State has not granted additional funds to the regulator, yet endowed with new prerogatives
“In three years, seven pieces of legislation have broadened our powers. It is new. Arcom will make it possible to better embrace the audiovisual challenges of its time, taking into account streaming platforms and major digital players ”, welcomes Roch-Olivier Maistre, its president since 2019, whose term ends in 2025. “There is a risk that the Arcom will become the Internet police”, warns Bastien Le Querrec, however, of Quadrature du Net, an association for the defense and promotion of rights and freedoms on the Internet. “It’s a new form of regulation. We are not on the control of content as in the audiovisual sector, but we will set obligations of means to these major players ”, challenges its president.
Arcom first marks the merger of the CSA with the High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet (Hadopi), which will increase the workforce of the new entity from 300 to 355 employees, for a budget of 46 million euros. The State has not granted additional funds to the regulator, yet endowed with new prerogatives. “I will ask for around ten additional hires under the 2023 finance law”, Roch-Olivier Maistre advances. Arcom will continue the mission of Hadopi, which, in ten years, has sent 13 million warnings, and pronounced 517 judgments. Among the novelties, the regulator will be able to establish blacklists of pirating sites. “We will no longer be obliged to go through formal notices”, welcomes Frédéric Delacroix, general delegate of the Association for the fight against audiovisual piracy.
“The dialogue continues”
It is above all the entry of video-on-demand platforms into the French creation system that is judged “Historical” by Roch-Olivier Maistre. The president of the CSA signed in early December with Netflix, Disney +, Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV + agreements setting their investment obligations in audiovisual production and French cinema, i.e. 250 million and 300 million euros for 2022. An arrival which was not made smoothly, the beneficiaries judging that the CSA had privileged the platforms to their detriment. “I will seize the Council of State to cancel these agreements”, fulminates Pascal Rogard, general delegate of the Society of dramatic authors and composers. “The dialogue continues with the producers”, moderates Roch-Olivier Maistre.
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