France's CSA broadcasting authority said today it wants to target video-sharing sites like YouTube and Dailymotion to force them to contribute to financing French culture.
In a report, the CSA said the sites fall in the same category as video-on-demand services so would be subject to French cultural protection laws that require distributors to hand over some of their revenues to help subsidise productions.
"These platforms... Have for years been developing partnerships with audiovisual publishers and content providers, with which they share revenues from advertising," the report said.
It urged the government to carry out a study of the sites' revenues from professional productions and determine how much they may be required to pay.