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July 12, 2005

Set Straight

I thank Dr. Taso G. Lagos for the following correction of an important detail in my July 4 posting, "The East is Green":

You indicated that since 1948 it has been illegal for movie studios to produce, distribute AND also own the theaters in which the films are shown. This practice is called "vertical integration." While it was illegal after 1948, since 1985, under the Reagan Administration, those prohibitions [the Paramount Consent Decrees] have been relaxed and now most major movie houses in America are owned by the major studios (the only exception is Disney, which at this writing, does not own any interest in movie theaters). So in Time Warner opening up theaters in China, this is hardly unusual. It has been going on here for 20 years, although silently ... By "silently" I mean that it was not widely publicized that this change took place in the mid-1980s. So far as I know, only the Wall Street Journal reported about it, and it was not a big deal.

Posted by mbayles at July 12, 2005 9:46 AM