美国反托拉斯法案例评析-United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. |
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时间:2013-04-10
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334 US 131 (1948), United States Supreme Court Background The major film studios owned the theaters where their motion pictures were shown, either in partnerships or outright and complete. Thus specific theater chains showed only the films produced by the studio that owned them. The studios created the films, had the writers, directors, producers and actors on staff ("under contract" as it was called), owned the film processing and laboratories, created the prints and distributed them through the theaters that they owned: In other words, the studios were vertically integrated, creating a de facto oligopoly. By 1945, the studios owned either partially or outright 17% of the theaters in the country, accounting for 45% of the film-rental revenue. Ultimately, this issue of the studios' unfair trade practices would be the reason behind all the major movie studios being sued in 1938 by the U.S. Department of Justice. Coincidentally, the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers a group led by Mary Pickford, Samuel Goldwyn, Walter Wanger, and others filed a lawsuit against Paramount Detroit Theaters in 1942, the first major lawsuit of producers against exhibitors. The federal government's case, filed in 1938, was settled with a consent decree in 1940, which allowed the government to reinstate the lawsuit if, in three years' time, it had not seen a satisfactory level of compliance, which included: (1) The Big Five studios could no longer block book short film subjects, known as one shot, or full force, block booking; 2) the Big Five studios could only block book up to five features in their theaters; 3) blind buying-buying of films by theater districts without seeing films firsthand- was now outlawed and replaced with trade showing, which made it so all 31 theater districts in US would see films every two weeks before showing movies in theaters; and 4) an administration board would enforce these requirements as well. It did not, and refiled in 1943, and the case went into effect-with now all of the Big Eight as defendants- as well after the war ended as well. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court in 1948. The verdict went against the movie studios, forcing all of them to divest themselves of their movie theater chains. In addition to Paramount, RKO Pictures, Loew's, Twentieth Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros., the American Theatres Association and W.C. Allred were named as This, coupled with the advent of television and the attendant drop in movie ticket sales, brought about a severe slump in the movie business, a slump that would not be reversed until 1972, with the release of The Godfather, the first modern blockbuster.
The Paramount Case is a bedrock of corporate anti-trust law, and as such is cited in most cases where issues of vertical integration play a prominent role in restricting fair trade. Decision Douglas 1.Clearances and runs, under which movies were scheduled so they would only be showing at particular theatres at any given time, to avoid competing with another theater's showing; Frankfurter
Consequences For the studios, the profits they had enjoyed from blockbusters like Gone with the Wind would be a thing of the past. Only with Jaws in 1975 would they see grosses that matched the scale they had achieved prior to this decision. The court orders forcing the separation of motion picture production and exhibition companies are commonly referred to as the Paramount Decrees. Paramount Pictures Inc. was forced to split into two companies: the film company now called Paramount Pictures Corp. and the theater chain (United Paramount Theaters) which merged in 1953 with the American Broadcasting Company (led by former United Paramount Theaters boss Leonard Goldenson for decades). Today, the former Paramount theaters are controlled by another theater chain, National Amusements, through its control of Viacom. Consequences of the decision include: More independent producers and studios to produce their film product free of major studio interference. |
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