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On Monday, Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim announced an unexpected policy change for the Justice Department’s antitrust division: a reversal of the Paramount Decree of 1948. This decision comes on the heels of broader public concerns surrounding monopolies, after the merger of AT&T and Time Warner, and of Disney and 21st Century Fox. It also follows the now-constant beating of the drums for the government to break up massive companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. Delrahim’s decision on the Paramount Decree reflects part of a larger department policy to review hundreds of legal orders that some refer to as “horse and buggy” policies — ones so old that they no longer actually apply to the businesses they regulate. Comparing his choice to Martin Scorsese’s famed quote about cinema being what is inside and outside of the frame, Delrahim declared, “Antitrust enforcers, however, were not cast to decide in perpetuity what’s in and what’s out with respect to innovation in an industry.” The decision, which the DOJ will bring to federal courts for a review, would allow companies in the movie business to not just buy movie theaters, but to use them in unexpected ways that could compound current concerns surrounding competition and market share in the industry. Your theatrical viewing options may already seem dominated by too few companies making the same type of movie. And this could make the problem worse. |
Getting this buffoon out of office and behind bars before movie theaters start getting bought out would be great.
Like I needed any more reason to despise Trump. First Donnie Dumb Dumb wants to ruin gaming by jacking up the prices of next-gen consoles with his stupid tariffs (that NO economist supports BTW) and now he wants to ruin the movie industry for everyone else.
