Why movie theaters are in trouble after DOJ nixes 70-year-old case:
By the late 1930s, the majority of power in Hollywood was concentrated in the hands of eight film studios, with the so-called Big Five—Paramount, MGM, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and RKO—holding the lion's share of the market. The studios not only locked actors into contracts and controlled film production and the distribution of those films, but also they bought up and founded movie theaters all over the country and thus controlled exhibition as well.
The DOJ [US Department of Justice] filed suit in 1938 alleging the eight studios were violating antitrust law in two key ways. First, the DOJ said, the studios were part of an unlawful price-fixing conspiracy, and second, they were monopolizing the distribution and exhibition sectors.
A federal District Court found in 1940 that the studios were indeed in violation of the law, which ended up leading to a whole long series of other legal challenges and appeals. In the end, the US Supreme Court in 1948 ruled 7-1 in favor of the DOJ in United States v. Paramount Pictures. The agreements the studios reached with the government, called consent decrees, required the studios to divest all their stakes in movie theater chains. They also had to end the practice of block booking, in which studios would require theaters to book a whole block of content—films and shorts—if they wanted to exhibit any of that content.
[...] In April 2018, the Justice Department announced it would undertake a review of "legacy" consent decrees put in place during the late 19th and 20th centuries as part of an agency-wide modernization initiative.
[...] Small theaters and independent theater chains all submitted comments to the docket, the overwhelming majority of which supported keeping Paramount in place.
[...] District Judge Analisa Torres, however, did not agree with any of the comments, and on Friday she agreed to terminate the decrees "effective immediately."
Torres' ruling (PDF) found that, basically, because we now have home video and Netflix, we don't really need to worry about competition in the movie-theater sector the way we used to.
(Score: -1, Troll) by aristarchus on Thursday August 13 2020, @08:47AM
No comment. Not interesting. Sorry. Carry on, without me, Soylentils.
#FreeAthaniniusKirchner!!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday August 13 2020, @08:48AM (4 children)
Is that the euphemism for "nixing antitrust decisions from a time when the justice system wasn't yet fully owned by corporations"?
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Thursday August 13 2020, @08:49AM
Yes. Yes it is.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @10:21AM (2 children)
Favors for billionaires? How dare you, Sir. How dare you.
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Thursday August 13 2020, @10:30AM (1 child)
Don't yell at me, the only favor I'd do a billionaire is to hold his head up when it gets chopped off.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday August 15 2020, @04:01AM
I'd hold his head down, not up.
Assuming he was swimming at the time.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by MostCynical on Thursday August 13 2020, @09:21AM (12 children)
how does a government department get to 'review' judicial decisions?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by EJ on Thursday August 13 2020, @09:30AM
District Judge Analisa Torres
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DrkShadow on Thursday August 13 2020, @10:31AM (5 children)
Brought by the United States, reviewed by the DoJ (the United States), and brought back to court to discuss the remedy as no longer being necessary..
Gotta love how the government continually acts against the interest of the people.
If any movie studios try to take advantage of this change, the large movie theater chains (if any survive) will have to pull this all the way back through the courts again, and they will win, again. If they survive the financial hardship. I don't see any streaming provider or anything else that offers release-day movies. Certainly not Netflix, maybe Disney+ for Disney movies, but the whole premise is incorrect.
Mostly such a re-decision will hurt smaller towns. Sure, Disney will build a Disney theater in Austin, TX -- but to hell with the smaller towns. Those theaters need to have movies from multiple studios just to have enough on offer that people want to see; viewership isn't high enough to have five theaters from five studios, so zero studios will build theaters in smaller towns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @11:22AM (1 child)
> Gotta love how the government continually acts against the interest of the people.
Believe me it could be worse:
Against energy? No *anything*? I'll take my chances being raped by billionaires [home.blog], thanks.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:50PM
POEs law is strong in this parent. I can't tell whether he's serious or trolling.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:48PM (1 child)
Indeed. As they say back where I come, "Where eighty people go, so goes the whole country."
Weren't you one of the ones bitching a while back when Ajit Pai sided with the millions of public comments against net neutrality? Come on man, make up your mind!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday August 13 2020, @03:08PM
Ought to put sarcasm tags around that. Some might not know or remember that there was a giant astroturf campaign to make it seem like the public was against net neutrality.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday August 14 2020, @12:59PM
Google claims 328.2 million people in the USA, some of which are even citizens, and somewhat less than 80 of them (not 80 million, not 80 thousand, 80... as in 0x50 hexadecimal) does not quite define the will of the people.
Its probably worth considering that the "competition" is cable TV where this business behavior is normal. So you have the classic regulatory problem, where the best way to ensure large scale competition against a monopoly competitor is to eliminate anti-trust at a very small scale to encourage competition at a larger scale.
It'll be more like the small town experience of Walmart and Target. Not every two horse town with a gas station and bar has BOTH a walmart and a target, but on average most folks are less than 10 miles away from each. Essentially all small towns have access to both Target and Walmart, just maybe not both right down the street.
What minimal social effect will occur is the idea of going to see a superfan movie will be a road trip for most participants. Which is somewhat cool in its own way. Personally I would not want to drive home two hours after being up all night watching some hollywood propaganda but whatever.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:46PM (1 child)
By redefining administrative code (or passed laws) so that it is different from the conditions present when the judiciary reviewed it and therefore the judicial decision no longer applies.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 13 2020, @03:14PM
Interesting that they are choosing to do a review right now, when most movie theater chains are almost completely shut down.
Whatever decisions they reach, influenced by the present (hopefully temporary) situation should be reviewed again when the crisis resolves.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:52PM
And also because in consent decrees guilt or liability is not admitted. Violation of a consent decree has to be noticed and advocated by a plaintiff - courts do not automatically take judicial notice that a defendant does not follow the terms of a decree. So if the executive does not file a charge that the decree has been violated there is no judicial action taken.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday August 13 2020, @05:55PM (1 child)
I mean, anybody inside and outside the government can look over a legal decision in detail. That's not a problem.
What is a problem is that it sure looks like what the DoJ is going to try for is finding some way of undoing that legal decision that doesn't involve finding a new case and bringing it to the Supreme Court (which, thanks largely to Chief Justice John Roberts, has not been as reliable a rubber stamp as the Trump administration would like it to be).
And to summarize the US legal system: A lot of the time, it's a complete farce, designed to produce results that are politically convenient or popular rather than legally correct or wise or just.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2020, @12:18AM
Has become the British Legal System that tens of thousands of colonists fought to overthrow and replace?
America is more and more looking like exactly the country/countries we threw out almost 250 years ago. One might consider asking if it is time the collective plebs do the same, without this time leaving a merchant based aristocracy in their place to underpin a similar situation going forward.
It's Animal Farms all the way down. :^)
(Score: 3, Touché) by pkrasimirov on Thursday August 13 2020, @10:54AM
Go Disney! Go Amazon! Go Google!
(Score: 3, Funny) by acid andy on Thursday August 13 2020, @10:56AM (2 children)
Heh, who wrote this article, Max Zorin?
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:02PM (1 child)
Sorry, don’t get theZorin reference , please explain
Zorin forms a plan to destroy his only competition in Silicon Valley by triggering a massive earthquake in the San Andreas Fault
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Zorin [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday August 13 2020, @02:06PM
If your browser supports it, look at the italics. It's the way Walken emphasizes certain words.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @12:39PM (2 children)
The DNC deregulates the radio biz, and the RNC deregulates the movie theaters. Funny, I thought these guys weren't on the same side. /sarc
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @01:16PM
They are on the same side. Their side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @11:21PM
> The DNC deregulates the radio biz
Huh? Then I suppose Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones are raging libtards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @04:36PM
They were in trouble for the simple fact most movies today suck. But this may bury them totally. At least as independent operations.
The few movies left of value, you will only get watch what the studios offer to you, where and when they want.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Booga1 on Thursday August 13 2020, @05:50PM (2 children)
Now that we have veggie burgers, we don't really need to worry about animal cruelty laws the way we used to.
Now that we have solar power, we don't really need to worry about pollution regulations the way we used to.
Now that we have self-driving cars, we don't really need to worry about traffic laws the way we used to.
Now that we have online banking, we don't really need to worry about mail fraud the way we used to.
So the current DOJ decides they don't like the rules any more and a single judge overturns a 7-1 Supreme Court ruling by saying "Well, times are different now."
I am sure there are a great many rules and regulations that people in power would want removed. So, just treat them as if there was an invisible expiration date on them. "Oh look, this law got old. Guess it's time to throw it out!"
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Thursday August 13 2020, @05:57PM (1 child)
Oh, and of course I understand there ARE times when laws and regulations are outdated and need to be removed, revised, or even expanded. We have a process for that through the legislative branch.
I guess that's another outdated concept that's too slow and inconvenient for today's world as well.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2020, @11:23PM
It only has to come into effect long enough to make a quick buck. And another buck on the return side trolling about govt regulation.