Forum - View topicPR: Sony's Funimation Global Group Completes Acquisition of Crunchyroll from AT&T
|
Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | ||
|---|---|---|---|
Chii85
 Posts: 145 |
|
||
|
Will Crunchyroll continue with Sentai and Viz
|
|||
|
|||
noblesse oblige
 Posts: 282 Location: Florida |
|
||
|
Now the company that can’t even design a proper app, webstore, or media player will get to impose its operations and culture on the one anime company that seemed somewhat in touch with fans (minus the Crunchyroll Originals nonsense).
Ever since the acquisition was announced, all the anime I’m interested in has been licensed by Funimation, but trying to navigate their website is a pain. In the end it doesn’t matter which company was run better. We don’t live in a meritocracy. The company with the capital to execute a buyout will always end up dominating the new acquisition. Hooray capitalism. Yet another failure of the Justice Department to enforce anti-trust law. |
|||
|
|||
Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10039 Location: Virginia |
|
||
|
When the competition is Netflix and to a lesser extent Amazon, it is hard to claim that Funiroll is a monopoly.
|
|||
|
|||
|
noblesse oblige
Posts: 282 Location: Florida |
|
||
At the risk of the discussion becoming too off-topic, I will limit my response to this single short post, because anti-trust enforcement is still relevant to anime in that it effects both the production ecosystem, worker conditions, and the quality and quantity of distribution platforms available to consumers. Anti-trust law is not limited to monopolies. The Clayton Anti-Trust Law of 1914 covers this with the outlawing of “any merger” that “substantially lessens competition”. This certainly applies to the Funi-Crunchy merger, and many others that have failed to be enforced. The result? One less entity to bid on anime streaming licenses. One less entity to fund anime production directly. One less platform for consumers to choose. One more dominant licensor and distributor to make more difficult the rise of new competitive anime streaming startups. |
|||
|
|||
|
Alan45
Village Elder Posts: 10039 Location: Virginia |
|
||
|
Look at all the mergers and consolidation in the entertainment industry in the last decade or so. I would suggest that there is a rather high threshold to invoke that law.
We as fans of anime tend to consider it unique and special. I suspect the justice department looked at this merger as part of the overall streaming industry. There it is relatively small potatoes. The streaming industry is currently wide open competition. |
|||
|
|||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group