Does Communications Minister Shlomo Karai not know the laws of the State of Israel, is he willing to ignore them in order to create a media spin against the broadcasting corporation, or is he at all acting in the service of the shareholders of “Hot” and “Yes”? Not sure which of the options is sadder, but it is hard to think of a fourth option, this is in light of a puzzling letter like no other that the minister sent today to the Israel Broadcasting Corporation.
In the letter that Karai sent today to the corporation’s management, he writes that he was “surprised” that he had to pay for the use of the corporation’s contents and its archive materials, and that this is against the public broadcasting law. “I have not found any source in the law that authorizes the corporation to charge a fee for its contents,” declares the new minister. Karai even goes so far as to state that collecting payment for the contents of the corporation is a violation of the law, no less. At the end of the letter, the minister demands that the corporation “immediately release the contents of the corporation.”
Shlomo Karai, until recently a rather anonymous member of the Knesset, who stood out mainly for his demonstrated loyalty to Likud Chairman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was appointed Minister of Communications and immediately announced his main mission: the elimination of public broadcasting in Israel. According to him, in order to “create competition” and “diversify the media” In a round of interviews he conducted, he demonstrated extreme ignorance of the Israeli media market (Krei, for example, thought that the Press Council, an archaic and powerless body, “limits what can be written or who can publish a newspaper”), and at the end of it, his true plan was even revealed: to use the funds of the corporation he was going to liquidate in order to Transfer them to the commercial channels, led by Channel 14.
In the same way that the eloquent talk about competition and diversity turned out to be a cheap ship, so was the extraordinary letter sent by the minister today. This time there was no need to wait several days.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karai with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Yonatan Zindel)
In reality, and in stark contrast to what is written in the letter, section 67 of the Public Broadcasting Law explicitly states the manner in which the Israel Broadcasting Corporation will manage its archive materials and the intellectual property rights in broadcasts and content in connection with various types of use (commercial and non-commercial), and expressly requires charging a fee for their use . Regarding non-commercial use, the law even sets a minimum threshold for usage rates: “provided that they reflect the ongoing operating costs of placing the preserved and documented material”.
The rates for non-commercial use, the law states, “will be approved by the Council and published on the website of the Israel Broadcasting Corporation”. Even later, the law explicitly states that the corporation may charge for the use of its contents “acceptable rates for this matter that will be approved by the council and will be published on the website of the public broadcasting corporation”. The opposite of what Minister Karai emphatically states in his letter, while he accuses the heads of a government corporation of violating a law – a law that he himself does not know (at best).
This is not the end of the absurdity, because the law also explicitly states (section 67, 3, 1) who has the authority to determine the terms of the commercial use of the content: the Minister of Communications. That is, if Communications Minister Shlomo Karai wants to change the rates for using the broadcasting corporation’s materials, he should have sent a letter to himself.
Of course, in order to exercise his authority, it was not enough for the minister to send himself a letter. Minister Karai was required to go through the route established by law. But he has already proven that the rules of proper administration are for him a recommendation: just today we revealed that Minister Karai began overlapping with the director general of the designated ministry, Elad Malka, this despite the fact that this is explicitly contrary to the rules of the Taxir, which state that the overlap of the director general of a government ministry begins Only after his appointment was approved by the government, and after he passed the appointment committee of the State Commission which examined his conflicts of interest and his suitability for the position.
And in short, the one who whistles about the law is the minister Dr. Karai, not the directors of the corporation.
So far, this is a description of Sher’s amateurish, offensive and embarrassing conduct, which could be attributed to a toxic combination of managerial inexperience, a desire to pander to the will of his political patrons (who are interested in the humiliation and elimination of public broadcasting) and an inability to differentiate between the behavior of a troll on Twitter and the behavior of Sher in the government. But it may be something darker. It turns out that by chance, these days the “Hot” company is fighting to get the corporation’s archive materials for free.
The emergency meeting of Kaan employees, 1/22/23 (photo: Kaan)
At the emergency meeting held today at the Broadcasting Corporation, the CEO Golan Yochfaz spoke strongly against the cable company. According to him, right now the company is working to get the corporation’s content for free for its VOD broadcasts. Today, the corporation sells content to the VOD libraries of the various companies, such as “Hot” and “Yes”, where half of the amount is transferred directly to the creators and the other half is used to create new content – according to law. “Hot” responded to “Walla” and claimed that “the issue has been on the desk of the Ministry of Communications for a long time”. .
If so, the puzzling and mistaken letter that Minister Karai sent today fits not only with his declared campaign to discredit and eliminate public broadcasting in Israel, but also with the interests of the major media companies in Israel. The spin is not double, but triple. Not only is the law the opposite of the one cited by Minister Karai. Not only is the authority to change it in his own hands. But the very rationale of his statement is the opposite of reality.
“The demand of the corporation’s managers to collect money for the content leads to a situation where the public pays twice. Both for the corporation’s content that is created by the Israeli taxpayer and for the subscription payment to the additional media body,” writes Minister Karai, but the truth, once again, is the opposite. Karai does not require the corporation to give the contents free to the public – after all, they are already available for free both on Channel 11 and online – but to give them free to the corporations so that they can collect money for them from the customers.
The minister’s spokesman, Avraham Hasson, has not yet responded to the “Seventh Eye” request. “The minister’s demand came in light of the publications according to which the Public Broadcasting Corporation prohibited the distribution of content to broadcasters who did not agree to pay for it,” he said to the Walla publication.