6 ms·

Yes when one group starts to control too much. I feel like that's the primary purpose of antitrust regulations.

jngreenlee 7y ago
Benedict Evens' newsletter this week made a good point in regards to breaking up tech: "anti-trust theory, on both the diagnosis side and the remedy side, seems to be flummoxed when faced by products that are free or as cheap as possible, and that do not rely on familiar kinds of restrictive practices (the tying of Standard Oil) for their market power. The US in particular has tended to focus exclusively on price, where the EU has looked much more at competition, but neither has a good account of what exactly is wrong with Amazon" I think this is salient...what is Disney doing (so far) to BLOCK competition?
- ysavir 7y ago
  1. Part of the problem is that large companies are no longer blocking competition; they're acquiring the competition. (eg. Many of Facebook's acquisitions, many of Disney's acquisitions). No need to block what you can just own. 2. I remember seeing an article on here recently that talked about how it is difficult to write down Amazon's exact offenses when their pricing algorithm is a secret.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  Antitrust theory as properly envisioned handles the case of low/free prices just fine. It’s only the warped and perverted version of antitrust theory advanced by Robert Bork and subsequently adopted by the US Government, where prices are the only measure of consumer harm, that can’t deal with it. Fortunately the wheels are starting to turn to improve the situation— Lina Khan’s article in the Yale Law Journal about Amazon’s anticompetitive behavior has been an earthquake in the law world and we may be in the early stages of shaking off the Bork madness.
  - rhizome 7y ago
    Lina Khan: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado... Thanks for the tip, I hadn't seen it anywhere yet.
- michaelbuckbee 7y ago
  In actual film theaters (not VOD) they're forcing theaters to give up a larger % of the ticket revenue, requiring that films be shown in the larger auditoriums and enforcing multi-week showtimes. This article describes the requirements for The Last Jedi, but my understanding is that this is pretty close to the requirements for any Marvel/StarWars/Disney film at this point. https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-requirements-to-show-star-wars-the-last-jedi-in-theaters-2017-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-requirements-to-show-...
  - jandrese 7y ago
    I have no doubt the requirements for Endgame were ridiculous. I waited a week to see it and of the 9 screens in my local Cineplex, 8 of them were still showing Endgame. The theater I was in was mostly empty, although to be fair it was a Sunday matinee. I can kind of see demanding that kind of coverage for the first week, but for a second week you're just robbing from competing films and the theaters themselves.
    - mrguyorama 7y ago
      >for a second week you're just robbing from competing films and the theaters themselves. Which is absolutely the point
soulofmischief 7y ago
Control too much what? Movies? Entertainment is not a public service...
- basch 7y ago
  Exactly. We arent talking telecom spectrum, oil supply, rail road track. We are talking owning the IP to too many movies? Theres a cap on how much art you can own? What if Disney was a private collector and bought up all the words art, and sealed it away, or charged admission at a single museum.
  - ultrarunner 7y ago
    I feel like that would work out poorly for Disney. I also think that, despite the importance of art, life would go on much the same. This isn't exactly a hill I want to die on, but I'm not terribly worried about any one entity buying up the worlds' movies (or other artwork) and restricting it from people any more than it's already restricted. People would (and will) make new movies, new art. I have a hard time seeing the justification for an overarching central control (if there even is one) policing who can own what and how much.
  - VikingCoder 7y ago
    Competition is good. When laws (eg, Copyright) allow consolidation like this, the laws are probably going to hurt consumers. We should seriously consider changing Copyright.
  - rhizome 7y ago
    Do you know about the demise of the studio system in Hollywood? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system
  - dls2016 7y ago
    > What if Disney was a private collector and bought up all the words art, and sealed it away, or charged admission at a single museum. If they provide all the museum security, fine. But in the real world Disney relies on the US legal system to protect their collection.
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
I agree this should be the primary purpose of antitrust regulations but I do not believe this is how the American government has treated antitrust since the time of Reagan, if it ever did so before.

Benedict Evens' newsletter this week made a good point in regards to breaking up tech: "anti-trust theory, on both the diagnosis side and the remedy side, seems to be flummoxed when faced by products that are free or as cheap as possible, and that do not rely on familiar kinds of restrictive practices (the tying of Standard Oil) for their market power. The US in particular has tended to focus exclusively on price, where the EU has looked much more at competition, but neither has a good account of what exactly is wrong with Amazon" I think this is salient...what is Disney doing (so far) to BLOCK competition?

ysavir 7y ago
1. Part of the problem is that large companies are no longer blocking competition; they're acquiring the competition. (eg. Many of Facebook's acquisitions, many of Disney's acquisitions). No need to block what you can just own. 2. I remember seeing an article on here recently that talked about how it is difficult to write down Amazon's exact offenses when their pricing algorithm is a secret.
Analemma_ 7y ago
Antitrust theory as properly envisioned handles the case of low/free prices just fine. It’s only the warped and perverted version of antitrust theory advanced by Robert Bork and subsequently adopted by the US Government, where prices are the only measure of consumer harm, that can’t deal with it. Fortunately the wheels are starting to turn to improve the situation— Lina Khan’s article in the Yale Law Journal about Amazon’s anticompetitive behavior has been an earthquake in the law world and we may be in the early stages of shaking off the Bork madness.
- rhizome 7y ago
  Lina Khan: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado... Thanks for the tip, I hadn't seen it anywhere yet.
michaelbuckbee 7y ago
In actual film theaters (not VOD) they're forcing theaters to give up a larger % of the ticket revenue, requiring that films be shown in the larger auditoriums and enforcing multi-week showtimes. This article describes the requirements for The Last Jedi, but my understanding is that this is pretty close to the requirements for any Marvel/StarWars/Disney film at this point. https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-requirements-to-show-star-wars-the-last-jedi-in-theaters-2017-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/disney-requirements-to-show-...
- jandrese 7y ago
  I have no doubt the requirements for Endgame were ridiculous. I waited a week to see it and of the 9 screens in my local Cineplex, 8 of them were still showing Endgame. The theater I was in was mostly empty, although to be fair it was a Sunday matinee. I can kind of see demanding that kind of coverage for the first week, but for a second week you're just robbing from competing films and the theaters themselves.
  - mrguyorama 7y ago
    >for a second week you're just robbing from competing films and the theaters themselves. Which is absolutely the point

soulofmischief 7y ago

Control too much what? Movies? Entertainment is not a public service...

basch 7y ago
Exactly. We arent talking telecom spectrum, oil supply, rail road track. We are talking owning the IP to too many movies? Theres a cap on how much art you can own? What if Disney was a private collector and bought up all the words art, and sealed it away, or charged admission at a single museum.
- ultrarunner 7y ago
  I feel like that would work out poorly for Disney. I also think that, despite the importance of art, life would go on much the same. This isn't exactly a hill I want to die on, but I'm not terribly worried about any one entity buying up the worlds' movies (or other artwork) and restricting it from people any more than it's already restricted. People would (and will) make new movies, new art. I have a hard time seeing the justification for an overarching central control (if there even is one) policing who can own what and how much.
- VikingCoder 7y ago
  Competition is good. When laws (eg, Copyright) allow consolidation like this, the laws are probably going to hurt consumers. We should seriously consider changing Copyright.
- rhizome 7y ago
  Do you know about the demise of the studio system in Hollywood? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_system
- dls2016 7y ago
  > What if Disney was a private collector and bought up all the words art, and sealed it away, or charged admission at a single museum. If they provide all the museum security, fine. But in the real world Disney relies on the US legal system to protect their collection.

bryanrasmussen 7y ago

I agree this should be the primary purpose of antitrust regulations but I do not believe this is how the American government has treated antitrust since the time of Reagan, if it ever did so before.