ABSTRACT
The purpose of this article is to contextualize the debate about the regulation of the video on demand (VoD) market in Brazil. After years of research and public discussion, the National Cinema Agency of Brazil (ANCINE) proposed a type of market regulation in which the Brazilian state would act directly upon the companies’ operations, suggesting the establishment of screen quotas for local audiovisual production and the collection of taxes on the gross revenue of service providers. After a sudden change of government in 2016, the Brazilian Ministry of Culture and the Superior Council of Cinema presented a proposal for a minimum regulation, based only on the hybrid system of collecting taxes on the catalogues of service providers. Amidst ideological and political clashes within the government, there are doubts about the digital audiovisual market’s ability to protect itself and foster cultural diversity. To analyze this complex scenario, we introduce an overview of the digital audiovisual market, discuss the political changes that affected the Ministry of Culture and compare the two proposals for regulating the VoD market. Finally, we assess the risks to cultural diversity in the audiovisual sector.
