[mullingitover]

> It would be very, very easy for all of the content distributors to band together into some sort of... 'union', that would help them strong-arm the owners and push back the incoherent decisions made by them.

I think when competing firms form a 'union' like this it's called collusion.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

One person’s collusion is another person’s Motion Picture Association.

the MPA has advocated for the motion picture and television industry, with the goals of promoting effective copyright protection, reducing piracy, and expanding market access. It has long worked to curb copyright infringement, including recent attempts to limit the sharing of copyrighted works via peer-to-peer file sharing networks and by streaming from pirate sites.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Association

[mullingitover]

This is kind of apples and oranges though. The MPAA is more of a lobbying organization, it isn't an agreement between firms about how they will compete (or not compete) in the marketplace

[eurasiantiger]

HDCP is absolutely a byproduct of abusing a quasi-natural monopoly.

[CRConrad]

Isn't it pretty much an agreement that they'll compete" (i.e. not compete) by all implementing basically the same shitty DRM?

[mullingitover]

A group of competitors agreeing on a standard isn't the same thing as collusion, though. There are all kinds of industry competitors that use common standards. Not defending the DRM, but that alone isn't collusion.

[hulitu]

The European court of justice would like to have a word with you. See recent VW and BMW fine.

[fao_]

It seems closer to Refusal To Deal, but the wiki page on that is sparse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusal_to_deal

It doesn't seem to fit the FTC's definition of that, either: https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/competition-guidance/guide-a...

Not to mention, there is already precendence

[dylan604]

This is how I was interpreting the suggestion to "join" together as well.