Wouldn’t Disney just set an insanely high license fee in this case though? If they’re just paying it to themselves then they can make it high enough that nobody else can justify paying it.

This problem was also an issue for movies and theaters. The "fix" is to ensure theaters (the distributors) cannot be owned by, nor can they own production studios.

So under this rule, if disney wanted to have their own streaming service and used a high licensing fee to try stop competitors from their content, they'd pay high taxes due to the high licensing fees making huge (fake) profits for the parent company - it'd end in losses, as the streaming service (as a separate company) cannot bill their cost onto the parent company (to offset the profit). It's as if the tax man gets to sit in the middle, and siphon part of that license fee for free. Disney shareholders would never stand for that, and so they won't do it.

Could borrow the concept of FRAND (Fair, Reasonable And Non Discrimatory IIRC) from tech companies licensing patents?

I don't know much about it and I do not think it is perfect, but from what I remember from discussions here it prevents certain forms of abuse.

I don’t think such an obvious scheme could escape the view of the monopoly laws could it?

I don't think you can have a monopoly on stuff you own. That's like saying I have a monopoly on my own house.

Ha. Guess you’ve not much grasp on how competition law works huh

I'm glad one of us explained our perspective, at least.

That’s what I come here for. To have stupid people who haven’t read up on their topic explain their perspective to me.

The idea of a mechanical license sounds perfect. Sorry to go off a tangent but my mind immediately went to healthcare as I have never heard of a mechanical license before.

can the same idea be applied to healthcare? for example, hospitals and doctors can set their own rates but these rates have to be public and they can't charge one insurance lower rate? If they charge anyone a lower rate, they have to charge the same rate for everyone.

> these rates have to be public and they can't charge one insurance lower rate? If they charge anyone a lower rate, they have to charge the same rate for everyone.

The problem with this is that it takes away only half of the negotiation. Doctors are now obliged to charge $X consistently but insurance is not obliged to pay it. So the negotiation process seems broken, and seems like it would cause a lot of bad faith negotiations from the insurers. “Eh, we’ll pay you minimum wage. Don’t like it? We’ll just wait until someone else finds your actual minimum and then you can pay us that.”

It’s also not clear what happens if Doctor A charges 10% more than Doctor B at the same medical facility. If you see Doctor A, can your insurance decline that even though they would have paid Doctor B’s rate?

Of course the current process is broken too.

This also solves the sports coverage issues. The clubs still make money but it’s the media companies that must compete on quality of service, punditry etc rather than it being an exclusive license to make money

Or just enforce United States v. Paramount Pictures.