Amazon Joins the Motion Picture Association, Hollywood's Top Lobbying Group

Amazon is joining the Motion Picture Association as its seventh member, alongside Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros. Discovery and Netflix. Engadget reports: Amazon was already involved with the MPA, having worked with its Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, an anti-piracy coalition, as a governing board member since 2017. MGM (which Amazon bought in 2022) was previously an MPA member from 1928 until 2005. Amazon's involvement with the MPA speaks to the foothold that the company has in entertainment. The fact that Amazon and Netflix are both members also highlights the major influence of streaming over the industry at large. "The MPA is the global voice for a growing and evolving industry, and welcoming Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios to our ranks will broaden our collective policymaking and content protection efforts on behalf of our most innovative and creative companies," Charles Rivkin, MPA chairman and CEO, said in a statement. "MPA studios fuel local economies, drive job creation, enrich cultures and bolster communities everywhere they work. With Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios among our roster of extraordinary members, the MPA will have an even larger voice for the world's greatest storytellers."

What does this mean exactly?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does this mean exactly? Does Amazon have to start working with unions now, or is this a DRM thing? Claude.ai tells me the MPA doesn't require unions while the first paragraph of TFA seems to indicate this is mostly a DRM thing, (emphasis mine).

WASHINGTON – The Motion Picture Association (MPA) today announced Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios will become the newest member of the global trade association, joining the world’s largest film, TV, and streaming companies.

Re:

[jmccue]

The MPA wants nothing to do with Unions. What this means is Amazon can start locking competitors out and add even more restrictive DRM to their products and streams.

Re:

[LazarusQLong]

I thought this was 100% about DRM.

Re:

[Stonent1]

It just means that Amazon can have the MPA lobby and enforce things that are beneficial to Amazon's movie related ventures.

Re:

[Njovich]

MPAA is a cartel designed to promote their members and push out any competition or other 'problems'. Amazon is joining it, that's all.

Re:

[bussdriver]

Alexa who is always listening, detects when you are watching content you didn't pay for...

Evil company joins evil association...

[gweihir]

Not that much of a surprise.

We can only hope

[Big Bipper]

Given Amazon's history of turning great properties like Wheel of Time and Rings of Power into utter garbage, not to mention sitting on its hands completely ignoring Stargate until its fan base disappears, we can only hope that it does the same for the MPA

Re:

[SvnLyrBrto]

Don't forget picking up The Expanse after Netflix dropped it; but then STILL cancelling it only 2/3rds of the way through.

Wonder if this will help compliance?

[ctilsie242]

Most compliance stuff, one can laugh at. HIPAA? Who cares. FERPA, if student data gets dumped in a torrent, you may get a finger waggle. SOX? Only reason to worry about that, is if you are a fisherman [npr.org]. PCI-DSS? If you are a bigger player, you likely will not even get a finger waggled in your company's direction.

However, the one place where people take security and compliance seriously is when dealing with anything MPA related. These guys pull no punches. They know that a single photo on a set or ju

MGM + Amazon media is huge

[williamyf]

As TFS said, MGM was a memeber from 1928 to 2005. As MGM was in a Decline, Amazon's contnet bussiness was in ascendancy.

As TFS also says, Amazon bought MGM in 2022. Most likely, the sum of Amazon and MGM is much bigger thyan what MGM was in 2005. Also, probably there is still institutinoal knowledge inside MG of the benefits of belonging to the MPA... So, the only surprise is: what took them so long?