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Justice Department Warns Academy About Changing Oscar Rules To Exclude Streaming (techcrunch.com)
The Justice Department has warned the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that its potential rule changes limiting the eligibility of Netflix and other streaming services for the Oscars could raise antitrust concerns and violate competition law. From the report: According to a letter obtained by Variety, the chief of the DOJ's Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, wrote to AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson on March 21 to express concerns that new rules would be written "in a way that tends to suppress competition." "In the event that the Academy -- an association that includes multiple competitors in its membership -- establishes certain eligibility requirements for the Oscars that eliminate competition without procompetitive justification, such conduct may raise antitrust concerns," Delrahim wrote. The letter came in response to reports that Steven Spielberg, an Academy board member, was planning to push for rules changes to Oscars eligibility, restricting movies that debut on Netflix and other streaming services around the same time that they show in theaters. Netflix made a big splash at the Oscars this year, as the movie "Roma" won best director, best foreign language film and best cinematography.
Delrahim cited Section 1 of the Sherman Act that "prohibits anticompetitive agreements among competitors." "Accordingly, agreements among competitors to exclude new competitors can violate the antitrust laws when their purpose or effect is to impede competition by goods or services that consumers purchase and enjoy but which threaten the profits of incumbent firms," Delrahim wrote. He added, "if the Academy adopts a new rule to exclude certain types of films, such as films distributed via online streaming services, from eligibility for the Oscars, and that exclusion tends to diminish the excluded films' sales, that rule could therefore violate Section 1." An Academy spokesperson said, "We've received a letter from the Dept. of Justice and have responded accordingly. The Academy's Board of Governors will meet on April 23 for its annual awards rules meeting, where all branches submit possible updates for consideration."
Delrahim cited Section 1 of the Sherman Act that "prohibits anticompetitive agreements among competitors." "Accordingly, agreements among competitors to exclude new competitors can violate the antitrust laws when their purpose or effect is to impede competition by goods or services that consumers purchase and enjoy but which threaten the profits of incumbent firms," Delrahim wrote. He added, "if the Academy adopts a new rule to exclude certain types of films, such as films distributed via online streaming services, from eligibility for the Oscars, and that exclusion tends to diminish the excluded films' sales, that rule could therefore violate Section 1." An Academy spokesperson said, "We've received a letter from the Dept. of Justice and have responded accordingly. The Academy's Board of Governors will meet on April 23 for its annual awards rules meeting, where all branches submit possible updates for consideration."
It seems like award shows should be free to chose whatever they like as criteria to base awards on - just as the public can feel free to ignore award shows that choose to slide into irrelevancy... not justice department needed I should say.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Fake awards, fake law enforcement. DOJ pretends to enforce anti-trust law, hopes you won't notice banks, telecom, health care.
the Justice Department can be looking into . . . . .
they look into a GD AWARDS SHOW ?
Where rich and famous celebrities co-mingle and congratulate each other for the ability to cry on que ?
( Does anyone even give a sh*t and watch it ? )
Not the opioid problem.
Not the thousands of illegals streaming across the border problem.
Not the Big Pharma cranking prices of drugs up by 5000% because they're a monopoly problem.
Not the $infinitely_long_and_MUCH_MORE_IMPORTANT_list of problems they can be looking at. . .
No no no. . . . The Academy Awards :|
W-T-F
What's ironic about it, exactly? Monopolies aren't inherently illegal, so the line you quoted seems accurate.
How long until Netflix buys one of the traditional studios that supports the oscars?
Rotten Tomatoes is slowly starting to bend the knee to the studios.
Imagine if Walmart, Target, Albertsons/Tom Thumb/Safeway, and Whole Foods / Amazon got together and came up with ways of making it harder for new companies to compete with them. It's ilegal for the established companies in a market, competitors, to collude to try to keep out new competitors.
The Motion Picture Academy is basically the major Hollywood studios; their decision to exclude Netflix and other new companies is about the major studios trying to disadvantage competition from the newer companies, according to the Justice Department.
ONE studio can do what it wants to try to cause problems for streaming services. It would be ilegal for them to collude in an anti-competitive conspiracy.
Factually, I don't know if the Academy is controlled by the major studios, but that's the law - if in fact the governors of the academy are trying to protect their employers by disadvantaging streaming services.
Yes, it's quite a weak argument when you publicly categorize yourself as a trade organization for an exemption from taxation by the IRS.
How is competition from Netflix and streaming different from competition from TV? Haven't telemovies already been excluded for years? I guess nobody cared because telemovies haven't been able to compete on quality in the way the movies made for streaming services now can.
During the last 30 years or so, the American industry suffered from a massive erosion in competition thanks to the endless merger-mania. The telecoms and cable industry are probably the best example, leaving most of us choosing between two or three major providers, but the same went on in other areas, for example the airlines. Our drugs are the most expensive because we don't allow imported drugs, and our health insurance market is a joke. Our government had no guts to split Microsoft, and it still has no guts to split the monsters like Google into a bunch of separate businesses.
So out of blue, they now worry about THIS? I honestly have this hard to believe. I am guessing the Amazon and Netflix lobbyists have rubbed a few right politicians.
I will say from the outside looking in the argument that any of these awards shows are "trade organizations" seems quite weak, and I would love to see how the court case goes here..
This is anything but a weak argument and it is not weakend in any way that the general public (including me and obviously you and probably anyone else) never realized that this award show is run by a trade organisation. Different rules would apply for award shows run by e.g. charities or even award shows not limited to members of the organizing trade organization or even awards without commercial and marketable potential as the Oscar.
So this is not a thing about "any award show" that would require special ruling or exemption but a bunch of criteria that makes this award (and probably a bunch of others) relevant in anti-trust laws.
On the other hand, any other reward not handed to industry members by industry members based on industry defined rules is not effected in the slightest way. e.g. Nobel Awards
bickerdyke
An award is speech.
Good luck with this, pal!
The speech is the bit of the award everyone wishes they would skip.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
The nascent studios, facing uneasy public relations , literally decided to get together and give themselves awards.
Stupid Americans bought the act hook, line, and sinker. The Academy Awards is an industry group doing promotion. Their awards are not a meritocracy nor do they reflect any kind of objective standards. WTH is DoJ thinking?
You can't play a game other people host and expect them to lose their own game. If anything, Rotten Tomatoes has made them obsolete, aside from the people who are more concerned with celebrity worship than filmcraft.
This American agrees, I have zero interest in awards shows or who wins, but we aren't the only ones to get sucked up in awards and celebrity worship.
Interesting point.
You said "If Walmart, etc., was only speaking by saying how great something was". I think there is a word for that. "Speaking on television about how great the product is" is normally called "advertising".
There have been several cases pitting Sherman anti-trust vs the First Amendment, where established media players colluded to keep new companies out.
Justice Black wrote:
"It would be strange indeed, however, if the grave concern for freedom of the press which prompted adoption of the First Amendment should be read as a command that the government was without power to protect that freedom. The First Amendment, far from providing an argument against application of the Sherman Act, here provides powerful reasons to the contrary. That Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public, that a free press is a condition of a free society. Surely a command that the government itself shall not impede the free flow of ideas does not afford non-governmental combinations a refuge if they impose restraints upon that constitutionally guaranteed freedom. Freedom to publish means freedom for all and not for some. Freedom to publish is guaranteed by the Constitution, but freedom to combine to keep others from publishing is not.â
https://www.law.cornell.edu/co...
the DOJ is more than one person, they can theoretically work on multiple things at once.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Surely a command that the government itself shall not impede the free flow of ideas does not afford non-governmental combinations a refuge if they impose restraints upon that constitutionally guaranteed freedom. —Justice Black
No, when these so-called "restraints" take the form of speech that's exactly what it means. The First Amendment, like everything else in the Constitution, is binding on the government, not private actors. By taking this action the government is infringing on the freedom of speech, and thus violating the Constitution—full stop. This is not counterbalanced by the dubious argument that their target was somehow (according to the government) undermining a more expansive interpretation of freedom of speech than the one embodied in the Constitution. This judge is placing his personal philosophical views above the actual law.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
1. You can only be a tax-exempt "non-profit organization" on certain grounds laid out in section 501(c) of the tax code. Read the second link. Then explore the other related categories.
2. Nothing except for the $300M in accumulated untaxed assets and $20M in net income made in 2016. Read the first link. Then tell me how there is "literally nothing to tax."
3. What is silly is your belief that the world works only in the way in which you want it to after 10 seconds of thought, when all evidence is to the contrary.
You're so far into an imaginary universe, calling it "wrong" does a disservice to those who try but don't get it right.