DOJ Warns Academy That Being An Anti-Streaming Luddite Could Violate Antitrust

So roughly a month ago you might recall that Steven Spielberg had a "get off my lawn" moment in demanding that Netflix films be excluded from Oscar contention. The sentiment isn't uncommon among old-school Hollywood types who see traditional film as somehow so sacred that it shouldn't have to change or adapt in the face of technological evolution. It was the same sentiment recently exhibited by the Cannes film festival when they banned Netflix films because Netflix pushed back against absurd French film laws (like the one requiring a 36-month delay between theatrical release and streaming availability).

You'll notice there's never much solid supporting evidence supporting these banning recommendations; just some vague arguments that films from streaming services can't be considered good because these companies push back against traditional and often counterproductive business tactics that haven't aged well in the internet era (like those antiquated release windows). And while Netflix's catalog certainly has its share of duds, there's an ocean of awards for films like Roma that suggest the entire sentiment is little more than old man protectionist nonsense.

Granted shortly after Spielberg's comments about how terrible streaming services were, Spielberg came out in breathless support of Apple's new undercooked Apple+ streaming service, suggesting that perhaps streaming services aren't so bad if Steven's backing them.

Curiously however, Steven's grumpy vision of a streaming-free oscars may not come to fruition. Reports this week surfaced that the Department of Justice has actually told the Academy to tread carefully in terms of excluding streaming services from contention, as they could run afoul of antitrust guidelines:

"According to a letter obtained by Variety, the chief of the DOJ's Antitrust Division, Makan Delrahim, wrote to AMPAS CEO Dawn Hudson on March 21 to express concerns that new rules would be written "in a way that tends to suppress competition."

"In the event that the Academy - an association that includes multiple competitors in its membership - establishes certain eligibility requirements for the Oscars that eliminate competition without procompetitive justification, such conduct may raise antitrust concerns," Delrahim wrote."

While that's actually makes some since for the DOJ, it's an odd issue to single out given all the other massive monopoly problems facing the US in the wake of years of eroded antitrust enforcement. After all, the DOJ just showed how feckless and toothless US antitrust protections are when it did a face plant in trying to stop AT&T's $86 billion merger with Time Warner, a deal that immediately resulted in significantly higher prices for both consumers and competitors alike.

So while the DOJ is correct in that the barring of Netflix and other streaming platforms from streaming contention is idiotic and anti-competitive, it's an interesting problem to be singling out given how useless and apathetic US antitrust enforcement has been on a wide variety of monopoly problems facing the US tech sector, from the cornering of ad markets to the vertical integration issues caused by telecom giants controlling both the content and the conduit to the home.