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Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

businessinsider.com

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Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#51

Post by glasscactus »

ncallaway wrote: post #36
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what job do you want the FTC to do here? I assume you think there is an antitrust angle on this potential acquisition? I am an economist and that is my field. I disagree with your take, if that is what you mean. This is a vertical merger. Vertical mergers are quite different in their welfare effects to consumers than horizontal mergers. Vertical mergers can frequently be welfare-improving to consumers. Indeed, this i…

The vertical integration of the distribution of media and the production of media is extremely problematic because of the way copyright operates in this country. I think you have to examine vertical integration in copyright affected industries differently than you would in, say, the vertical integration of steel production with a company that consumes steel. The interaction with copyright invariably creates issues fo…

True, but this isn't vertical integration of delivery/production like the AT&T / Time Warner merger. Thank god AT&T is exactly as incompetent as we all thought they were. There's nothing to see here. Amazon is just expanding their existing footprint in a market segment where they are barely afloat.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#52

Post by fredoralive »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #19
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What sort of good stuff does MGM have? I use Prime Video a lot since it is basically free with my Prime and would love some new quality content. Edit: Posting this I found because my question was dumb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer_fi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer_fi...

Note that due to various deals back in the 80's, MGM doesn't own most of its older films, Warner Bros does. They do have the entire United Artists catalogue, and films from some other smaller studios like Orion pictures.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#53

Post by kingsuper20 »

ncallaway wrote: post #36
huitzitziltzin wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what job do you want the FTC to do here? I assume you think there is an antitrust angle on this potential acquisition? I am an economist and that is my field. I disagree with your take, if that is what you mean. This is a vertical merger. Vertical mergers are quite different in their welfare effects to consumers than horizontal mergers. Vertical mergers can frequently be welfare-improving to consumers. Indeed, this i…

The vertical integration of the distribution of media and the production of media is extremely problematic because of the way copyright operates in this country. I think you have to examine vertical integration in copyright affected industries differently than you would in, say, the vertical integration of steel production with a company that consumes steel. The interaction with copyright invariably creates issues fo…

To repeat myself in another post here, copyright is a funny thing in that it proposes a form of monopoly, just on the small scale.

I think it's hard to avoid the conclusion that increasingly strong copyright holders (given all of the media mergers) implies increasingly strong copyright law.

Add that to the expanding ability of parsing for copyright violations and I can imagine the Disney Police parachuting in to arrest you for that counterfeit Micky Mouse watch 150 years after Steamboat Willie.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#54

Post by adventured »

GeekyBear wrote: post #28

Isn't it the case that a radio station doesn't need the permission of a composer to play their work on the radio, but instead pays a non-negotiable fee? Internet radio stations work similarly, but also distribute money to the performer(s) and label. The core idea of forced licensing to any streaming service willing to pay a set fee could do a lot to prevent consumers from needing to pay for so many streaming services…

As a radio station you typically go through one of a few licensing companies, which you pay royalty checks to. For example:

https://www.ascap.com/help/royalties-and-payment/payment/who...

https://www.bmi.com/licensing

You can't just play any music you want on the radio without permission (with an automatic fee attached). I've owned commercial radio stations and while you could play a vast amount of music with no hassle, it's due to the licensing/royalty agreements with companies like ASCAP & BMI that streamline the process.

Pretty much everybody that plays music in the US has an agreement with ASCAP, including XM Sirius, all the streaming services, and just about every radio station.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#55

Post by paganel »

huitzitziltzin wrote: post #27
snarf21 wrote: post #6

Is the SEC and FTC ever going to do their job? They have failed us in the 21st century. Shareholder value over everything else. It would be nice for some regulation to attack all this rent seeking.

what job do you want the FTC to do here? I assume you think there is an antitrust angle on this potential acquisition? I am an economist and that is my field. I disagree with your take, if that is what you mean. This is a vertical merger. Vertical mergers are quite different in their welfare effects to consumers than horizontal mergers. Vertical mergers can frequently be welfare-improving to consumers. Indeed, this i…

> If your prediction is that this will result in a welfare loss to consumers I would ask that you offer some evidence.

For what it's worth a company that is valued at between 1.5 and 2 trillion usd has to come with evidence of how it isn't a monopoly/abusing its monopoly position, we can't reasonably talk about a "free market" when those numbers are involved.

I'm not an economist and I'm not good with remembering names, but I do seem to remember that there was more than one economist in the past who said that one of the few ways of getting/acquiring "value" is to reach a monopoly position. $1.5 trillion is a hell lot of value.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#56

Post by afavour »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #42
afavour wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't sound like we disagree. Why couldn't the FEC allow the merger with a mandate that content be available on all (or a reasonable number of) platforms?

I think half measures can hurt more than they benefit, due to it being used politically as an excuse to not address the root issue by claiming it was already addressed. The root issue here is excessive copyright terms. Those are the source of the monopoly. We already solved the distribution problem with the internet, now it’s a political issue of reducing copyright lengths. Any other solution will be used by politici…

> The root issue here is excessive copyright terms.

Not really. That's an issue, certainly. But the consolidation of media ownership into companies that control the entire process from production to the hardware video is played on has very little to do with how long back catalogues retain copyright protection.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#57

Post by jjcon »

oblak wrote: post #37

Here's hoping for a new Stargate TV show! Despite a couple of amazing BSG seasons, SG-1 is just better overall. I don't event want the old crew. Just give us something cool. The only good thing that came out of SG Universe was the opening episode. It was awesome.

I fear Amazon will just screw it up - theyll make it an edgy game of thrones style show where people explode in vats of blood in episode 1 and then they’ll deflect all criticism by adding touches of the latest twitter trends to an episode here and there

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#58

Post by ghaff »

GeekyBear wrote: post #28

Isn't it the case that a radio station doesn't need the permission of a composer to play their work on the radio, but instead pays a non-negotiable fee? Internet radio stations work similarly, but also distribute money to the performer(s) and label. The core idea of forced licensing to any streaming service willing to pay a set fee could do a lot to prevent consumers from needing to pay for so many streaming services…

Music has compulsory licensing which pretty much no other copyrighted material has.

>The core idea of forced licensing to any streaming service willing to pay a set fee could do a lot to prevent consumers from needing to pay for so many streaming services.

I'm skeptical. While there are exclusives, one of the reasons Netflix, for example, doesn't have more content is that it has to balance the size of its catalog with the fact that consumers probably aren't mostly willing to pay $100/month.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#59

Post by kingsuper20 »

ghaff wrote: post #44
kingsuper20 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, the test for monopoly is detrimental effect for consumers, not control of a market. Making your company more vertically integrated (by buying a back catalog in this case I guess) probably doesn't trip any alarms. I'm surprised that they don't buy Penguin. Maybe Bertelsmann has no interest in selling. If you think about it, publishers of print/music/movies are essentially built on monopoly given th…

Book publishing is a rather fragmented market and a lot of the growth is in self-publishing, which Amazon already own a big chunk of in various ways. I'm not sure why Amazon would have any interest in an old school publisher.

You can make the same argument about buying MGM.

Looking at Publishers Weekly, I see this:

"An important driver of print book sales last year was the continuing increase in backlist sales, McLean said. Backlist titles accounted for 67% of all print units purchased in 2020, up from 63% the year before. In 2010, backlist accounted for only 54% of all unit sales. " https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/b...

I think you could make a strong argument for buying a large publisher (or anything really) given a good ROI.

Re: Amazon is reportedly negotiating to acquire MGM for about $9B

#60

Post by treis »

dageshi wrote: post #35
throwaway_kufu wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a little background on the movie industry and antitrust law, the Hollywood studios once upon owned everything from the way movies were produced, distributed and exhibited. The monopoly held by the studios was effectively broken up following WWII. Yes, there were multiple studios competing but individually they were engaging in antitrust behavior. This acquisition is essentially a waiving of the white flag and pas…

Distribution was physical back in the day, your choice of cinema was dictated by location. Locking specific movies to specific cinemas was a detriment to the public for that reason. Does that matter when the alternative is via distribution by internet? Honestly, you can sub to netflix for one month, watch everything you want and then unsub, same with all the other services. Has there ever been a point in history wher…

No, but we are solidly in the consolidate and undercut competition phase. The issues arise in the use monopoly power to extract large profit phase.
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