Germany recently decided to establish a new tax for video on demand suppliers to finance the national cinema industry. A provision that has already received the support of the European Union.
How to protect the local audiovisual productions? The new measures are quite diverse, as reflected also by the European Parliament’s Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which could take effect in September. However, the countries of the European Union seem to have already started, through internal measures, to protect themselves against the diffusion of the OTT platforms that could erode the market shares of the local production. Precisely for this reason, the European Commission is supporting the new tax to the OTTs in Germany.
The provision, would not only be a way to tax Netflix and other streaming platforms, but also to protect the local production. In fact, the resources derived from taxes will be used to finance and promote German culture. Opposing this resolution, Netflix appealed last November 2016 to the decision of the European Commission.
The verdict is expected for May 16, 2018, but it seems difficult to obtain a different opinion on the issue given the arrival of the new directive on behalf of the European Parliament. In particular, the new obligation to streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to dedicate at least 30% of their content to European production films alongside the law on financing audiovisual productions in Europe will prevail.
