Justice Department Warns Academy About Changing Oscar Rules To Exclude Streaming (techcrunch.com) 140
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."
How can this be anti-trust? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:How can this be anti-trust? (Score:5, Insightful)
Only one question, who has enough money to get the DOJ involved?
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I believe that the answer to that is Uncle Sam.
You DO realize that government agencies "responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice" have a duty and a mandate to act in order to enforce the laws of said government?
Like... Totally on their own.
No one has to tell them to do that.
That is their job.
You get that, right?
In your "secret rulers of the world" universe, that bit of info leaks through the paranoia, right?
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Yeah, well, somebody paid them to pick this case over real antitrust violations in banking, energy, communications, transportation, agriculture. It is theater. So please, save your shilling for the believers.
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Possibly since Hollywood hasn't been kind to the right, it's a bit of payback. But unless you have some evidence of your claim, you're nothing but a tin-foil AC. People taking money in the Justice Department would be risking jail, so until you have a smoking gun, I'm gonna call BS.
Re:How can this be anti-trust? (Score:5, Informative)
It's not like what I'm saying is a guaranteed to happen or anything, but the fact that it can happen means it's at least a concern. And since the Academy is run by the studios, they have a vested interest to prevent outsiders from gaining traction. As such, it would potentially fall under the Sherman Act like the summary mentions.
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I don't have a paid Netflix subscription, therefore I cannot watch Netflix movies.
If the Academy is forced to include Netflix movies, they are giving Netflix a big boost. Should the Oscars also be forced to include made for TV movies? It's the same reasoning.
Re:How can this be anti-trust? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a paid Netflix subscription, therefore I cannot watch Netflix movies.
You can't watch a film at the theater without buying a ticket either. I'm not sure how that's relevant to the discussion.
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That and the fact that the price of a non-matinee movie ticket would pay for a month's worth of Netflix in many markets...
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A month of Netflix generally costs less than ONE movie ticket (depending on time of day and location of the theater)
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OOooooo. This is interesting. I am surprised because I wouldn't think there is much here:
I think I am seeing what the other person was driving at. Netflix is not an "open platform". I need to subscribe and I need to have an "approved device" whereas with a movie theater, I just buy a ticket and watch, nothing special needed from me.
A movie theater has to justify kicking me out, Netflix does not.
I am sure there is more to it than this, but there is a very real difference in access between a movie theater and
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Sure, if those made for tv movies see any sort of release in theaters. Netflix was able to submit their content by playing along with long established rules which only required minor runs in theaters.
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Should the Oscars also be forced to include made for TV movies? It's the same reasoning.
Yes. Why is this even a question? I mean it's not like that's a threat. Made for TV movies have a certain non-Oscar quality to them so the fact that this restriction is in place in the first place is truly bizarre.
But the reality is that Netflix actually pay to have their movies shown in a Cinema which actually makes them different from your direct to TV approach.
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You also don't have a free ticket to the movie theaters, so you can cut that bullshit right there. The Oscars have included streaming sources, and now that it's cutting into Spielberg's (and others) bottom line, they want to limit competition. That's anti-competitive, and should be stopped. Yes, there are also plenty of other places that the JD should be doing the same, but that's just whataboutism.
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Generally an industry becomes regulated to the degree that it is monopolistic. Since there can be only one network of sewer pipes in a city, we regulate utilities. But are the Oscars enough of a “monopoly” to justify external regulation? I’m tempted to say yes, on grounds that Hollywood’s own culture keeps demanding the external regulation of absolutely everything, so regulating the Oscars would be a beautiful object lesson on being careful what you wish for. But let us not descend t
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At that point, the Academy is supporting traditional studios to the exclusion of potential competition.
Yes, it is self promotion, an advertisement for the studios. What is the problem? Netflix can have their own awards show. I am fascinated that this is a hot button issue.
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Following that trail, it then becomes harder for Netflix to make quality movies with major names because the actors don't get their rightful acclaim for the work.
This is not true. It would not be any more difficult for Netflix to make quality movies, it just means that they would have to give their movies a full theatrical release before putting them on the streaming service if they want that Oscar bump.
This happened because Netflix has been following the letter of the rule, in defiance of the spirit of that rule. The Academy has said that they want the Oscars to be for theatrical films, and made some rules to try and enforce that. Netflix did the bare minimum to
Re:How can this be anti-trust? (Score:5, Informative)
It can be because the Sherman Antitrust Act [cornell.edu] says:
This award show is run via written and oral agreements -- i.e., contracts -- amongst members who are competitors and effectively operates as a trade organization. The Sherman Act does not include an "award show" exception, and I see no need for a snap amateur opinion on whether the Justice Department is needed in lieu of a professional opinion by persons qualified to practice antitrust law, i.e., the DOJ antitrust division.
Still doubtful (Score:2)
contracts -- amongst members who are competitors and effectively operates as a trade organization.
I'm not going to really argue that point, as you say an amateur opinion is not equal to the department of justice.
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... after all the DOJ does not win every case it pursues, so it's not like they are infallible in option as to what const
Re:Still doubtful (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, it's quite a weak argument when you publicly categorize yourself [propublica.org] as a trade organization for an exemption from taxation by the IRS [irs.gov].
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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 i
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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 r
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An award is speech.
Good luck with this, pal!
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An award is speech.
Good luck with this, pal!
The speech is the bit of the award everyone wishes they would skip.
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It does, however, include a freedom of speech exception, whether it wants to or not.
The government can no more control this because it is for money than it can control a newspaper because it is for money.
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the DOJ antitrust division
Yeah, no high drama political theater there, right? The Academy owes them an award!
Re:How can this be anti-trust? HUH? (Score:2)
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Most Oscars are fully deserved, but they always been devalued by those who are barely deserved and have been included for some kind of marketing reasons (or bribing?).
Like black panther? The film that starts with him giving up his powers so he can go through a thing to get his power because reasons and it's all downhill from there.
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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.
Perhaps for a privately-run, individually-operated awards show, but the Academy is a trade organization representing the interests of its members, and those members come from competing (almost entirely incumbent) companies across the film industry. As such, its members run the risk of engaging in collusion if they take action that prevents competition, most obviously if they were to prevent competition from a competitor who isn't part of their ranks.
Towards that end, when Spielberg more or less suggested th
Rules (Score:1)
If the studios are pushing to keep, say, Netflix away it's a very serious concern. If the oscars just don't like Netflix or any other reason, it's not such a problem
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If the studios are pushing to keep, say, Netflix away it's a very serious concern. If the oscars just don't like Netflix or any other reason, it's not such a problem
Netflix should just have their own awards. With black jack...and hookers. Forget the awards.
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The People need not be afraid or armed thugs who would tell them, "here is our approved list of whom you may declare great actors and movies".
It's not one organization, it's a cartel of establ (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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If Walmart, etc., was only speaking by saying how great something was, well, yes, the dictators in government who would control what you say can go hang.
Is this a law? Damn. The First Amendment wins.
Interesting point. A word for that (Score:3)
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
Re:Interesting point. A word for that (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
History of the Oscars (Score:1, Interesting)
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 conc
Re:History of the Oscars (Score:5, Interesting)
Fake awards, fake law enforcement. DOJ pretends to enforce anti-trust law, hopes you won't notice banks, telecom, health care.
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WTH is DoJ thinking?
Grabs the headlines, doesn't it? It's absolutely wonderful Theater of the Absurd...
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There's nothing misleading about saying, "This actor is great!" And even if it were, it is not a lying snake oil promise about fake medicine.
This is speech, not manufacturing.
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Rotten Tomatoes has made them obsolete
Talk about buying something hook, line and sinker.
Rotten Tomatoes is a PR site for big studios. It's owned by NBCUniversal and Warner Bros.
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Except that the Oscars are speech, not part of a manufacturing progress.
Free speech drags itself like an 800 lb. gorilla wherever it goes.
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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.
Of all the problems (Score:4, Insightful)
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
Re:Of all the problems (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like Congress grilling baseball players about doping. It's all about conspicuously appearing to be doing stuff that matters to the average voter. Ideally, stuff that's easy. I imagine the current DOJ has no love for Hollywood right now, so it's something that doesn't agitate any donors of the current administration.
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Remember this observation the next time the parties are swapped, and make sure you still hold it a high value.
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In my book anti trust was meant for things that are required to live. If it is something I don't need to exist why is the government wasting tax dollars. Oh right wasting tax dollars is what the government does.
Just my 2 cents
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Worse, this is speech they are attacking, explicitely carved out for protection.
Declaring it "for money" is not a work around for the First Amendment assaults any more than it is for a newspaper.
Government minder: "Here is a pre-approved list of people and movies you may praise. Do not deviate or you will be jailed."
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Let's look at the list shall we:
Awards show: The presence of the award making a start or service marketable in an industry and thus having negative direct financial impact on people and companies across the industry involved or working with one specific company. - Seems exactly what the Department of Justice - AntiTrust Division should handle.
- Opioid problem - Not sure why the Anti Trust Division should handle that.
- Illegals streaming across the border - I think this is more of a Fox New problem than anyt
tick tock (Score:5, Interesting)
How long until Netflix buys one of the traditional studios that supports the oscars?
Re:tick tock (Score:5, Informative)
How long until Netflix buys one of the traditional studios that supports the oscars?
That won't help if a rule "restricting movies that debut on Netflix and other streaming services around the same time that they show in theaters" comes into force. Netflix would have to buy enough traditional studios to have the votes to change the Academy's rules.
What about TV? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Netflix i complying with the current rules to debut the movie in theatres.
The new rules would require them to not show those movies on Netflix for some time after the theatrical release.
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Netflix is fighting it because of the the experience of TV movies. Netflix can see that if they want to be able to attract quality acting talent to make their own movies they have to fight to make that material eligible for the awards shows. Of course if the Studios weren't so hell bent on extorting every penny possible out of their licensing agreements for streaming, Netflix likely wouldn't have pursued creating their own content to the point that they are now in direct competition.
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Movies and Television are separate markets. Television gets their money from advertisers, Movies get their money directly from individual consumers. Entirely different market forces at work; therefore, it is appropriate to treat them differently, even if they seem similar on the surface.
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the DOJ is more than one person, they can theoretically work on multiple things at once.
Since when our government cares about antitrust? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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PewyDie (Score:2)
Just Regulate It FTW! (Score:2)
If the film industry doesn't want competition, just do what every other industry does: ask Congress to create regulations (that the movie industry itself will write). That way the barrier to entry is so high no newcomers can enter, and boom!: no competition and none of that Sherman Act nonsense.
Clearly these movie people are rank amateurs.
Oscars are awful (Score:2)
Oscars don't really mean anything anymore, it's more about the best promoted submitted movie than really about being the best.
It would be really stupid to exclude streaming movies from the Oscars, especially because they are made exactly the same. Because a movie hasn't been in theatre doesn't mean it's a bad movie or not 'oscar worthy'.
Oscars should be about the best production etc, and that could even be a television movie.
Don't break the law (Score:2)
So this is our world, huh? Oscars. I think I now see how Trump is going to go down.
Trump & family's criminal conspiracy with foreign governments against America will be proven, but no action will be taken. Campaign finance violations will be proven, but no action will be taken. Massive tax fraud has already been proven and more will be proven, but no action will be taken except for financial penalties. Multiple counts of obstruction of justice have already been proven and more will be, but no action wi
Re:Oh the irony (Score:5, Informative)
What's ironic about it, exactly? Monopolies aren't inherently illegal, so the line you quoted seems accurate.
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Yes people seem to confuse anti-trust with monopolies in both directions. You don't need to be a monopoly in order to abuse your market position and fall afoul of antitrust laws either.