Amazon Buyout of MGM Should Be Blocked, US Unions Demand

A consortium of US unions referred to as Monday for Amazon’s buyout of the legendary Hollywood studio MGM to be blocked, citing considerations in regards to the tech large’s rising energy over the subscription video streaming sector.

“Amazon’s influence on the health and diversity of the film-making industry is likely to be negative if the company is permitted to grow larger,” mentioned the Strategic Organizing Center, a federation of 4 main labor unions that represents some 4 million staff.

The group referred to as on the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to dam the takeover, which was introduced in May.

Amazon has provided $8.45 billion (roughly Rs. 63,010 crore) {dollars} for greater than 4,000 movies, together with the James Bond sequence, The Silence of the Lambs, Robocop, Basic Instinct, Raging Bull, and Thelma & Louise, in addition to an intensive catalog of TV sequence together with The Handmaid’s Tale, Fargo, and Vikings.

“Amazon’s current control over massive amounts of streaming content means the merger is likely to give Amazon greater incentive and power to exclude and discriminate against its competitors,” the group mentioned in its assertion.

It argued that the buyout will give Amazon management of some 56,000 titles, far forward of Netflix, which might have slightly below 20,000. 

The unions additional argued that Amazon’s market energy isn’t just “horizontal” but additionally “vertical,” with the sale of digital units for video streaming (the corporate’s Fire line) and cloud providers for storing the content material of its rivals, beginning with Netflix, the preferred of the platforms. 

Questioned by AFP, Amazon highlighted the number of selections at the moment obtainable to customers, citing particularly Netflix, Disney +, Apple TV +, HBO Max, and Peacock. 

The firm additionally famous that neither MGM nor Amazon have been concerned within the manufacturing or distribution of any of the 20 most profitable movies around the globe in 2018, 2019, and 2020. 

The FTC and plenty of US states have launched investigations and lawsuits towards Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, which they accuse of abusing their dominant place in their very own markets, from social networks to digital promoting and on-line commerce.

Amazon has come to broadly lead the cloud providers sector, however it’s its towering dominance of e-commerce that raises the hackles of its critics.

“The company has a long history of leveraging its dominance to gain a foothold in new markets by using practices we believe are unfair and anticompetitive,” the unions mentioned.

“This merger would allow Amazon to use the same playbook against the streaming video industry, inevitably impacting producers and consumers of video content and squeezing diversity as it gains market share,” the unions mentioned. 

© Thomson Reuters 2021