Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back to?
I suspect the reference is to piracy.
I suspect he means that he never stopped, hence nothing to go back to
Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
61–70 of 844 posts
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc, which is the MGM Amazon bought is not the same company as MGM Resorts International, which is the MGM that owns casinos. The casino people become an independent company year and years ago.
Names are similar because they were one company until 40 years ago Edit: comment was edited a bit. Before it mentioned the names are similar but unrelated.
Yeah I got their history confused with a completely different company for a second then realized my mistake. I haven't had my coffee yet.
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#63So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.
> Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD.
When I was a kid, if you wanted to watch an NBC show, you had to watch it on an NBC network. What is the difference?
At least nowadays you can just pay, watch, and cancel at your leisure with the click of a few buttons.
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#64So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.
Would you also establish compulsory licensing so that studios and distributors can’t have exclusive content?
My point as well. A law to break up content and distributors seems far-reaching. Let the studios do what they want.
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#65So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.
One wrinkle of that era was how they even had their own stable of actors working for them exclusively. The new vertical integration doesn't seem to be going that far down. I imagine there's not as much interest in that, and actors have a powerful union now.
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#66So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.
> We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution.
Piracy is competition to bad content behavior. It's a meaningful consumer response to monopoly, balkanization and other anti-consumer practices.
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#67That's almost pocket change for the trillies
> the trillies As in companies with a trillion dollar market cap? I hadn't heard that slang before -- I like it.
It's from a David Brin book IIRC... Existence.
Good book.. there are a class of people worth trillions of dollars and he explores all kinds of weird things that could happen. Like trillie teenagers launching themselves into space on joy riding rockets illegally.
That's just one tiny little aspect of the story.
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#68So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.
What's interesting is that the government had to step in and break the movie theaters from the movie studio in a famous anti-trust case. I wonder how it'll play out in this case. Presumably Amazon may still license Bond movies (for example) to Netflix. In fact Netflix is included in my Prime bundle I believe...
That Supreme Court case [1] stopped the vertical integration where the studios signed actors under exclusive multi-year contracts, made the films, and will only release them in their own theaters. It was overturned by new legislation in 2020.
1- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Paramount_P....
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#69So what we're seeing is a repeat of the film industry from 1930's-1950's. You want to see a Paramount movie, you must go to a Paramount theater. Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. We could really use laws that force, once again, some sort of separation between production and distribution. Better stuff gets made in this kind of ecosystem.
> Today you want to watch an Apple show you must go to Apple's VOD. When I was a kid, if you wanted to watch an NBC show, you had to watch it on an NBC network. What is the difference? At least nowadays you can just pay, watch, and cancel at your leisure with the click of a few buttons.
I'm unfamiliar with US television - but was NBC broadcast free to air, via a government regulated transmitter?
Re: Amazon acquires MGM for $8.5B
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
lol, online monopoly isn't enough for the tech companies? You want them to monopolize offline too? :)
>lol, online monopoly isn't enough for the tech companies? That raises an interesting question - how would non-tech companies compete online? Shouldn't tech companies be an effective monopoly in tech? Do mining companies have a monopoly on the mining industry?
I don't know how many mining companies there are, but if there is only one or two companies that take 80%+ of the market, then yeah, that is a monopoly/duopoly. Online - one company (Google) controls most of search, two companies (Google and Apple) control nearly all of mobile OS, one company (Amazon) more than half of cloud market, one company (Facebook) controls much of social, one company (youtube/google) controls most of video market.... etc etc.