The Hollywood filmmaking and distribution machine is
powerful, although not as dominant as it was in the 1930s, during
the golden age of the studio system. With the competition from
streaming video services like Netflix, Hollywood has even more
concerns about a power-shift in the industry, but executives are
not panicking. At least not yet, and certainly not
publicly.
Besides the threat to Hollywood from streaming services, those
in the film industry may be more concerned with another big change
on the horizon: the recently announced U.S. Department of Justice
(DOJ) plans to undo the Paramount Consent Decrees. These
court-mandated restrictions, enacted in 1948, forced the biggest
businesses in film to sell off their theater chains and effectively
ended the old-fashioned Hollywood studio system. While the
DOJ's changes have yet to take effect fully, those with Intellectual
Property rights over various elements of American movies
(particularly directors, writers and
