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Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

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Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#401

Post by Larrikin »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #371
magicalhippo wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Norway we have a law for mobile carriers which is intended to prevent moats. It states that carriers must provide access for a "reasonable price" to other phone companies. It seems to have worked fairly well. One could imagine something similar, that sure you can put your own movie or TV show on your own website, but you must also sell it to companies who asks on reasonable terms. So Netflix can make a movie…

This is completely different. Cell phone infrastructure in particular is by nature a natural monopoly. Two carriers can’t operate over the same frequency and only certain frequencies are conducive for cell phones. Content has no such restriction. Are you really saying every piece of content anyone produces must be licensed? Who decides what is “reasonable”?

The law would decide what is reasonable

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#402

Post by fwip »

VanTheBrand wrote: post #161
WorldMaker wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Also the weird part of the Skydance Lasseter drama is not just that is happened once, there, but that it happened at nearly the same time but worse at Annapurna. Annapurna games division that had done so well last decade got purged by rehiring someone to oversee it who had been fired the first time for the "overly affectionate" types of problems just before Annapurna's "Golden Age" and was hired as much to bet…

David Ellison was an intern at Pixar in college and has a personal relationship with Lasseter. Annapurna games was under his sister and has no management connection to Skydance. I guess if there is any common denominator it’s a familial default to loyalty vs fear of public perception? Not the worst trait in the world despite leading to this outcome. Also to be fair Lasseter’s “serial harassment” (while real and I’m n…

> his insistence that everyone hug him when greeting him.

As far as I understand it, that's the least objectionable of the many stories about him. From a 2017 article [1], we also have:

> “He’s very tactile in a weird way,” said one former female executive who, like others, spoke with Deadline on condition that she not be named in the story for fear of reprisals. “He would rub my leg in a meeting … It was creepy and weird. It got to the point where I wouldn’t sit next to him in a meeting, because it undermined everything I said.”

> Lasseter was observed passionately kissing a female subordinate at a 2010 Miramax party,

> one person saw Lasseter pull the female executive tightly to him and move his hands over her body. The female executive later sought to laugh off the encounter, saying she didn’t think her job description included “being groped by John Lasseter,” the observer said. “But you could tell she was pissed.”

[1]: https://deadline.com/2017/11/john-lasseter-behavior-pixar-di...

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#403

Post by thayne »

toyg wrote: post #393
thayne wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand how that kind of clause can be legal. Its existence puts anti-trust enforcement in a catch-22, either they allow the merger, which reduces competition, or they reject it, and the acquiree is decimated, also reducing competition.

> I don't understand how that kind of clause can be legal. Arguably they promote a chilling effect around acquisitions, which does help competition: "don't try to buy something unless you're prepared to deal with a possible fallout" should result in fewer attempts at consolidating dominant positions. I'd almost be tempted to posit that such a clause should become mandatory for deals over a certain threshold (e.g. $1b…

> don't try to buy something unless you're prepared to deal with a possible fallout

The kroger Albertsons deal was the other way around, the seller had to pay the buyer if the deal didn't go through.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#404

Post by toyg »

thayne wrote: post #403
toyg wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how that kind of clause can be legal. Arguably they promote a chilling effect around acquisitions, which does help competition: "don't try to buy something unless you're prepared to deal with a possible fallout" should result in fewer attempts at consolidating dominant positions. I'd almost be tempted to posit that such a clause should become mandatory for deals over a certain threshold (e.g. $1b…

> don't try to buy something unless you're prepared to deal with a possible fallout The kroger Albertsons deal was the other way around, the seller had to pay the buyer if the deal didn't go through.

yeah, that sounds like a bit of blackmail...

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#405

Post by NoGravitas »

dawnerd wrote: post #152
imbnwa wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly what is going on. Everyone at WB management knows that the Ellisons want to weaponize CNN before the midterms runoffs start in spring.

Netflix isn't buying CNN though, Paramount can just pick up Discovery on the cheap when its split off. There's no reason for them to even be trying to do a hostile bid either. I think this is just purely an ego/power trip thing.

It's scheduling. WBD was set to spin off Discovery Global in April --- after the March congressional primaries. The hostile bid creates leverage to get the TV networks spun off sooner, rather than later, to ensure that the Ellisons can pick them up Q1, in time to set the narrative for the congressional primaries.

See: https://substack.com/@thedreydossier/p-180959723

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#406

Post by NoGravitas »

andsoitis wrote: post #295
salawat wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix and those involved hasn't conclusively metamorphosed into a Larry Ellison-esque state of Lawn Moweriness. Make no mistake, it (Netflix) is still a billionaire corp; on the humanity scale, it scores quite low, but not lawn mower low. They're still outside the Ellison event horizon.

> it (Netflix) is still a billionaire corp What does that mean?

It means do not make the mistake of anthropomorphizing Larry Ellison.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#407

Post by __turbobrew__ »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #330
__turbobrew__ wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen several aspects of entertainment in my life get squeezed for money (Magic The Gathering, movies, TV streaming, video games) and I have decided to basically quit any form of entertainment which is solely controlled by large corporations. People get extremely angry when Magic The Gathering charges more money, for more exclusive products, in more frequently occurring releases. Rage, grief, and sorrow over an…

The great thing about games that are 10+ years old is that they're cheap, you can filter out all but the best rated, and the hardware to run them won't require mortgaging your first born. I'm building a Steam library for my retirement. I quit gaming when I had kids, and currently play tennis and do inline skating as my regular active hobbies (which, I believe, count as touching grass), with gaming as my injury / infi…

Agreed, part of playing old games is that you aren’t required to be exploited by hardware manufacturers who are charging exorbitant prices for GPUs and RAM. A constant whine I hear is the unaffordability of hardware to play new games, but you do not have to play new games. For the cost of a single GPU you can fund many other hobbies for a lifetime.

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#408

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

Larrikin wrote: post #401
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely different. Cell phone infrastructure in particular is by nature a natural monopoly. Two carriers can’t operate over the same frequency and only certain frequencies are conducive for cell phones. Content has no such restriction. Are you really saying every piece of content anyone produces must be licensed? Who decides what is “reasonable”?

The law would decide what is reasonable

Would you want the “law” deciding that you had to license software code to anyone and have the law set the price?

How does the law decide how much Disney should license the Avengers for compared to my cat videos I’m going to put on my website?

Should we expand the law so if I post open source code under AGPL, I must license it to at a certain price?

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#409

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

Larrikin wrote: post #399
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you want to pass a law that no one can produce content and put it on their own website?

No, just media production companies on their own streaming service. There is no reason to pretend that billion dollar, publicly traded companies are poor college kids just trying to get noticed on the Internet for their quirky videos.

Okay, and if they move ownership and production outside of the country and stream it from their website ate yoi going to block them from streaming to the US?

How is that law going to apply to Sony who is Japanese owned and CrunchyRoll?

Do we force PluralSight and Udacity to share their content? YouTube creators?

Re: Paramount launches hostile bid for Warner Bros

#410

Post by sophrosyne42 »

p_j_w wrote: post #306
sophrosyne42 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the OP is just making an unrelated comment, because it almost sounds like he thinks that a hostile bid is evidence that the US has Ukraine-levels of corruption. Leaving aside the odd time period (Ukraine was much less corrupt pre-war than it was pre-Maidan, not to speak of its other more corrupt neighbor), the fact that hostile bids have been around for a long time in the US is good evidence to suggest that t…

You've completely missed the point. It's not that there's a hostile bid, it's the conditions of this particular hostile bid pointing to corruption.

Sure, it could be that. If only OP said that.
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