Netflix, Hollywood studios warn Australian streaming quotas could violate US free trade deal
The government has consistently promised it will introduce local content quota obligations on streaming services by July this year.
Federal Labor insists it is committed to introducing local content quotas on streaming services despite warnings from Netflix and the lobby group representing HBO and other Hollywood studios that the regulation could violate Australia’s free trade agreement with the United States.
The claim emerges in at least two submissions to the government’s consultation paper on streaming quotas, obtained by Capital Brief, and turns the screw on forthcoming regulation that would place tighter controls on investment in Australian content by global platforms, set to take effect from July.
The Australia New Zealand Screen Association (ANZSA) represents a string of global entertainment studios including Sony Pictures and HBO parent Warner Bros. Discovery. It wrote in its response to the government’s proposal late last year that it had seen legal advice to suggest the quotas could run afoul of Australia’s free trade agreements with the US and Korea.
“With respect to the AUSFTA [Australia-United States Free Trade Agreement], this legal advice concludes that ‘although the two ... models are structurally different from the March 2023 obligation models, they have the same discriminatory effects and thus suffer from the same inconsistencies (with additional flaws) that cause them to violate the same provisions of the AUSFTA’,” the ANZSA submission reads.
