I wasn't talking about destroying the whole parent companies.  I was talking about these particular animation companies.  If you look up these companies, you will see that the parties involved weren't reall Sony the parent company, but these small companies started for the sole purpose of animation.  THese small companies have to earn their profits.  The Sony division that they talk about is actually gone now because it couldn't actuall make it...

This isn't about Sony...this is about fair market competition for skilled labor.  The value of a job, is supposed to be determined by the market, not by a bunch of industry execs colluding with each other.  As I said, that's illegal.

Pixar, isn't a small company, it was started in 1986, and by the time of this particular issue (2002), was far from being small.  Likewise with Dreamworks, who had just come off of making roughly 267 million dollars off of Shrek alone, in 2001.  These are not 'small' animation groups.

Both sucks, companies who "agree" with each other for stuff like the wage fixing and headhunting for employees of other companies like they did. It's almost like walking in the office of a company and asking the employees directly if they want to leave this company.

Again, I didn't make my point clear.  Sony bought Columbia pictures back in 1989.  When they decided to start Sony Animation Studios(a division of Columbia which was owned by its parent Sony), that is how this whole thing came to light.  The same can be said for Dreamworks.  The small company inside of Dreamworks, was Dreamworks Animation.  Pixar was also made up of lots of small companies.  Most large companies are this way.

When it comes to quoting $267 million for Shrek, that was the revenue generate by the movie, not the profit.  Dreamworks Animation itself would have only seen a small percentage (probably only 20-30%)of the actual profit($30-40 million) as they distributed all of their movies through movie studios(Paramount at the time I think) with distribution arms.

My point was that many of these companies worked togther on many projects through various deals in place by them or their parent companies.  Because of that, they may have had an understanding that they would not harm themselves through cut throat business practices.  By harming thm, they would in fact be harming themselves.

I don't disagree, that this may have impacted the earnings potential of these employees in the short term.  But it could just as easily proven to hurt their ability to be employed later by other studios.  That was my point in bringing up the demise of Sony's animation studio.  They burned the bridges(partnerships) with other studios and eventually failed.  Not sure how that helped anyone else out.  It probabaly damaged the careers of those who got involved to a degree.

Remeber, these "agreements" may have stopped companies from directly approaching employees without consent, but proabably couldn't stop these employees from seeking employment on their own.  That is what the Law was about(or at least its apllication here).

thanks for the article a really good read, and good to know that Sony decided to not play the ball with the other companys, that were indeed doing illegal stuff by violating the Sherman Anti-Trust Act by doing wage fixing.

also mornelithe i agree with your statements, especially with this one: "The value of a job, is supposed to be determined by the market, not by a bunch of industry execs colluding with each other.  As I said, that's illegal."

At the very least, I'd say it's safe to say they have a case they can bring before the courts, just like the Silicon Valley employees' class action suit against tech colluders currently before the courts. The judge can decide if these communications were illegal or not.

I agree.  Like I mentioned earlier, when all the information comes out, and it is taken in context of when and what was transpiring at the time, it may have a real damning implication or none at all.

I think the take away here is that almost any large company that you hold as "good" or "honorable" is probably doing something that is just the opposite from a different point of view.

Dude where is your sig from?  Creepiest picture ever.

Hahahaha. ha. Then you continue to dig some more through out the thread. Thanks for the laugh.

The Witcher 3 video. I think it's a friendly guy