Going after Hollywood money structure

Department of Justice Opens Review of Paramount Consent Decrees

As part of The Department of Justice’s review of nearly 1,300 legacy antitrust judgments, the Antitrust Division today announced that it has opened a review of the Paramount Consent Decrees, which for over seventy years have regulated how certain movie studios distribute films to movie theatres. The purpose of the review is to determine whether or not the decrees should be terminated or modified.

The Antitrust Division announced in April its initiative to terminate legacy antitrust judgments, stating that it would review all such judgments to identify those that no longer serve to protect competition. The initiative was undertaken because many of the final judgements that the Division entered into from the earliest days of the Sherman Act until the late 1970s do not include sunset provisions or express termination dates. Consequently, those judgements are perpetual, regardless of whether there have been subsequent industry or technological changes that might make those judgements either ineffective in protecting competition or even anticompetitive themselves.

In particular, the Paramount Decrees have regulated how certain movie studios distribute films to movie theatres since the Supreme Court’s decision in United States v. Paramount, 334 U.S. 131 (1948). For example, the decrees ban various motion picture distribution practices, including block booking (bundling multiple films into one theatre license), circuit dealing (entering into one license that covered all theatres in a theatre circuit), resale price maintenance (setting minimum prices on movie tickets), and granting overbroad clearances (exclusive film licenses for specific geographic areas). Given that these decrees do not have any sunset provisions or termination dates, the Division will thoroughly review them to determine whether they still serve the American public and are still effective in protecting competition in the motion picture industry.

“The Paramount Decrees have been on the books with no sunset provisions since 1949. Much has changed in the motion picture industry since that time,” said Makan Delrahim, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “It is high time that these and other legacy judgments are examined to determine whether they still serve to protect competition. Today, we take an important step forward in the process of reviewing the Paramount Decrees.”

Since the district court entered the Paramount Decrees, the motion picture industry has undergone considerable change. None of the Paramount defendants own a significant number of movie theatres. Additionally, unlike seventy years ago, most metropolitan areas today have more than one movie theatre. The first-run movie palaces of the 1930s and 40s that had one screen and showed one movie at a time, today have been replaced by multiplex theatres that have multiple screens showing movies from many different distributors at the same time. Finally, consumers today are no longer limited to watching motion pictures in theatres. New technology has created many different distribution and viewing platforms that did not exist when the decrees were entered into. After an initial theatre run, today’s consumers can view motion pictures on cable and broadcast television, DVDs, and over the Internet through streaming services.

As a consequence of all of these changes, and the fact that the decrees have been in place for over seventy years, the Department has opened a review to determine whether the decrees should be modified or terminated.

The Antitrust Division has posted an invitation for public comment on its public website (https://www.justice.gov/atr/paramount-decree-review), inviting interested persons, including motion picture producers, distributors, and exhibitors, to provide the Division with information or comments relevant to whether the Paramount Consent Decrees still are necessary to protect competition in the motion picture industry. The period for public comment is 30 days.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-opens-review-paramount-consent-decrees

"QAnon is scary because it’s getting bigger, it’s scary because we don’t know how to stop it, and it’s scary because the people behind it won’t be stopped, and, until their illusory storm arrives, they won’t be satisfied."

QAnon is terrifying. This is why.

By Molly Roberts

August 2, 2018 at 3:21 PM

“The Storm is coming,” say the conspiracy theorizers whose grotesque imaginings terrified the country to attention this week. Maybe they’re right.

QAnon adherents encourage those seeking the truth to “follow the White Rabbit,” but it’s hard to hop down this hole without getting totally lost in their horrorland. The simplest description of the plot line goes something like this: President Trump isn’t under investigation; he is only pretending to be, as part of a countercoup to restore power to the people after more than a century of governmental control by a globalist cabal. Also, there are pedophiles.

A figure named “Q,” who supposedly possesses Q-level security clearance, disperses “crumbs” that “bakers” bring together to create a “dough” of synthesized information. (This is not how baking works, but that seems the least of our worries.) Because Q is the 17th letter in the alphabet and 17 is also a number Trump has said a few times, among other clearly-not-coincidences, he is the real deal, not an Internet troll engaged in an elaborate example of live-action role-play.

It’s obvious that this is scary, but it’s less obvious exactly why. To start, the sheer scope of the supposed conspiracy should cause alarm. By combining the tales tinfoil-hatters have told over time, these truthers have packaged everything attractive about this type of propaganda in one tantalizing product. And that means more and more people will buy what they’re selling.

Then there’s QAnon’s path to prominence — from 4chan to 8chan to more mainstream sites such as YouTube and Twitter and, finally, to a Florida Trump rally and television screens across the nation. In the cesspools where the theory first flourished, registration is either not required or not possible, and the “rules,” such as they are, look nothing like the terms of service for a site like Facebook. The intelligentsia is already at odds over how the more-established entities should regulate themselves, or be regulated. It’s even harder to have that conversation about a site like 4chan or 8chan that eschews responsibility for its content entirely.

Now that it’s clear that what starts on the fringe doesn’t stay there, it is a real concern. QAnon’s lurch from online to off hasn’t manifested only in T-shirted ralliers wielding weird signs. Last week, a “baker” appeared outside Michael Avenatti’s office because Q sent him there. Others have started searching for child sex camps in the desert outside Tucson. A man in an armored truck blocked a bridge near the Hoover Dam demanding the release of a report that Q claimed the government was withholding. He had two guns.

What’s scariest of all, though, might be what motivates Trump’s base to believe in so byzantine a conspiracy. QAnon isn’t your average story of all-powerful actors exercising complete control over a helpless populace. This time, the heroes are already in charge and, still, the theorists see themselves as victims. Why, even with their man in the Oval Office, do they feel embattled?

One explanation has to do with the on-the-ground reality of this presidency. Perhaps the men and women who buy into this gibberish aren’t so confident that they’re in charge at all. The special counsel looks ever closer to proving ties between Trump and Russia and, in the meantime, Trump appears more erratic. If he really is under investigation and not just pretending to be, all his supporters’ hopes evaporate.

More:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/08/02/what-makes-qanon-so-scary/?noredirect=on