
Disney Ends Ban on Los Angeles Times Amid Fierce Backlash - mhb
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/07/business/disney-la-times.html
======
lsmarigo
Huge credit to Alyssa Rosenberg from the Washington Post for being the first
to stand up to Disney on this.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-
four/wp/2017/11/06/w...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-
four/wp/2017/11/06/why-i-wont-be-reviewing-the-last-jedi-or-any-other-disney-
movie-in-advance/)

Also for the curious this was the piece that got LA Times blacklisted:
[http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-disney-anaheim-
deals/](http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-disney-anaheim-deals/)

From that article: _Even if the parking garage fills just half its spaces, it
would still generate more than $35 million in annual revenue and easily
hundreds of millions of dollars over the life of the structure.

That money all goes to Walt Disney Co. The city of Anaheim, which owns the
garage and spent $108.2 million to build it, charges the company just $1 a
year for the lease._

~~~
dpiers
I am going to write a letter to the City of Anaheim to inform them I am
willing to pay double, maybe even triple, to lease their garage property.

~~~
forapurpose
Perhaps there's a law requiring a competitive bidding process ...

------
irl_zebra
Also keep in mind that Disney is most likely caving not due to the public
backlash, but the threat of being disqualified from critic awards
considerations.

~~~
mayneack
I don't see any indication that this is any more important than the public
backlash.

~~~
dsr_
If it becomes known that no Disney-made film will be considered for major
awards, the actors and directors who are typically in contention for such
things will suddenly be busy when a Disney-affiliated producer calls. Those
who are persuaded to come anyway will ask for more money.

Executive producers are often hoping to win awards as well as make money;
they'll be leery of the situation too.

Always look for the bottom line. The boost to Disney from winning any given
award is minuscule, but the extra cost of talent can be significant.

~~~
mayneack
Yeah, I understand all that, but nowhere does anyone suggest that they care
more about the awards than general backlash. They weren't even blocked from
the major awards - academy awards, golden globes - just the regional critics
association awards.

------
vlahmot
So everyone goes back to reviewing movies ahead of time and Disney feels no
pain from their actions beyond a small PR hit.

I feel like everyone framing this as "We won't pre-review movies until you
lift the block" gave them too easy of an out.

~~~
f2f
It also had a Streisand effect on the LATimes article. Which many people
(including myself) would not have otherwise read.

~~~
dmix
Yes, large company executives have misjudged the impact of the Streisand
effect countless times. But this time isn't just the result of internet
network effects, the media has always had the power to push back on large
organizations (and politicians) who attempt to bully them. And journalistic
organizations have historically banded together in these moments.

The media has always been one of the best natural counter-balances in
capitalism and democracy to poorly thought out power plays by insecure
executives, without requiring direct intervention or oversight by a third
party.

Hopefully this isn't shielded in the media as generically the fault of
'Disney', which is a large organization staffed by varied people, but the
particular people behind this move. Because lets be honest, this will hardly
hurt Disneys bottom line. No one is going to not see their big movies,
considering the brands they own and their overall reach. But hopefully it
filters back to whichever executive had a power trip over this.

Few power-players have survived attacking the media, unless the media was
widely perceived to be wrong about something, which is not the case here.

~~~
saint_fiasco
Maybe they keep trying the Streisand strategy because most of the time it
works and we only hear about it the few times it fails. How would we know?

~~~
f2f
i think the only way to counter this is to try to make a meme out of
everything.

------
omegaworks
This is precisely why it is important to counteract the creeping tightening of
copyright law in favor of Disney. They've successfully lobbied Congress for
extensions every time Mickey comes up to the end of his protection.

>Disney has a history of taking punitive action against news organizations and
analysts when they publish articles or analysis that it deems unfair.

This kind of behavior can only be afforded by companies with extremely tight
control over their media distribution vertical.

Government policy created this monster.

~~~
tzs
> This is precisely why it is important to counteract the creeping tightening
> of copyright law in favor of Disney. They've successfully lobbied Congress
> for extensions every time Mickey comes up to the end of his protection.

"Every time" is a kind of odd way to describe something that has only happened
once definitely, and possibly one other time.

The copyright on Mickey Mouse has been extended twice. The first was the
Copyright Act of 1976, which changed copyright terms to match those of most of
the rest of the world. Works that were still under copyright at the time were
retroactively given the term they would have had in the rest of the world
(life + 50 for works of individual authors, publication + 75 for works for
hire).

I've not found anything on whether or not Disney lobbied for the 1976 Act.
They undoubtedly were in favor of it, but there probably was little need to
actually lobby for it. It's main purpose was to bring US law more in line with
the rest of the world, paving the way for the US to eventually join the Berne
Convention. It also codified fair use and the first sale doctrine, and
legalized library photocopying, relaxed notification and registration
requirements. There was widespread enough support for all of these that
lobbying would not be needed.

The second was the Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, which Disney
definitely lobbied for.

------
HelloNurse
Didn't Disney predict "fierce backlash"? How could they expect journalists to
turn their back when one of them is intimidated?

A non-psychopath PR answer to embarrassing investigative journalism should
involve creative attempts to minimize the gravity of the problem, to look good
and to confuse the issue: Disney PR managers appear to have learned how to do
their job from gangster movies instead.

~~~
redblacktree
I think this was a power-tripping executive's decision, rather than a
professional's.

~~~
HelloNurse
Before power-tripping, an executive should be a professional. It doesn't take
a PR expert to know that threatening freedom of the press is a "now I have two
problems" solution; anyone considering such behaviour should have been
screened out at the start of their career, not empowered.

------
jostmey
disney should have never tried it to begin with. I am reminded of the south
park episode where mickey mouse walks around beating people up. Sometimes
fiction isn't that different than real life.

~~~
freeflight
Sometimes fiction actually depicts reality way more aptly than reality does.
Disney is a company that has literally influenced and changed how most of
humanity thinks about "copyright" and public domain [0]

This is no small feat and imho it's a far more sinister and evil thing to do
than straight up murdering some people. They've been one of the main driving
forces for the commercialized monopolization of information and ideas, for the
worse and most likely for whole generations to come.

There's also something quite macabre about such company focusing so heavily on
children and constantly prioritizing their "friendly and nice" appearance: Get
them when they are young and they will be loyal their whole life, get them
while you are smiling and they won't expect you coming at them.

[0] [https://www.eff.org/de/node/90076](https://www.eff.org/de/node/90076)

~~~
mturmon
Sounds like Disney has done for movies, stories, characters and cartoons what
Facebook is doing for chat and social communication -- Putting them behind an
aggressively-defended corporate wall and making money by using them as
advertising vectors?

What I'm trying to suggest here is that there is a parallel between the
(Hollywood-based) Disney machine that has employed, enriched, and frustrated
storytellers over the years, and the (Silicon Valley-based) machines that are
now employing software pros.

~~~
freeflight
Facebook couldn't do what they do if Disney didn't "clear the way for them",
so to speak.

Imho it's all part of the same trend where "intangible goods" have become more
valuable than actual tangible resources, which seems how we spend our way out
of the 2008 recession.

At this point it's pretty much impossible to be a fan of something "pop
culture" and not having to pay the IP tax to Disney, or some other massive
corporation, for owning that IP.

On one hand, generating money out of writing code or painting a character sure
is a good option to have, creative arts need to be properly compensated. But
with how copyright law has changed over these past decades this can sometimes
have really bad outcomes and as time progresses it feels like more and more of
these "intangible goods" are being monopolized.

Happy birthday songs and Christmas songs being "copyrighted", sending out
cease-and-desist orders to people singing them, sounds like a bad joke of a
dystopian future, but that's where we already have been for quite a while now
and it's only getting worse.

And it's not like we'd have to convince just one government to reform
copyright, at this point we would rather have to convince mega corporations
likey Disney because it's them who actually hold the influence to change
legislation for literally half of the planet.

------
cwkoss
What was the LA Times story that precipitated the blackout?

~~~
mayneack
[http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-disney-anaheim-
deals/](http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-disney-anaheim-deals/)

------
joering2
Related (great article of a subject that comes back to HN)

[https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-
public-...](https://priceonomics.com/how-mickey-mouse-evades-the-public-
domain/)

------
oxide
The ban was bullshit- good on disney for axing it.

~~~
webkike
No, bad on Disney for doing it in the first place.

~~~
pwinnski
Crazily enough, it can be both bad on Disney for doing something bad, _and_
good on them for ending it.

Best of all, this should serve as an example to other companies tempted to do
similarly-terrible things. It probably won't, but it should.

~~~
jhall1468
They ended it because they bit of more than they could chew, not out of
altruism. Once they had threats of losing out on critics awards, they jumped
ship instantly.

~~~
r00fus
Reward good behavior, punish bad behavior. Recognition to Disney for ending
their bullshit ban, but they still need to answer for their position on the
$1.2b Anaheim parking lot that the city "leases" to them for $1/yr.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Why would Disney need to answer for that? If you could lease a billion dollar
property for $1 / year, wouldn't you? Anaheim should answer for that.

~~~
r00fus
I think it's perfectly fair to ask companies like Disney and Nestle [1] why
they're getting sweetheart deals from local governments where they're going to
make millions or billions out of that property.

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nestle-water-
lawsuit-2...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-nestle-water-
lawsuit-20151013-story.html)

------
slg
In the last week Disney prevented industry critics from accessing a new
product early enough to have a review prepared before release. This move was a
reversal of both their own previous behavior and industry standard. People
were outraged.

In the last week Apple prevented industry critics from accessing a new product
early enough to have a review prepared before release. This move was a
reversal of both their own previous behavior and industry standard. People
didn't seem to care.

I am at a loss to explain why these reactions were so different. Is it because
Apple has more goodwill? Is it because Apple is more opaque in their
motivations? Is it because movie criticism is a more mature field with more
consistent and well defined standards?

EDIT: As a response to the downvotes, here is the specific recent change that
Apple made regarding the iPhone X [1]. And for those who say that it is
different to punish an outlet for unrelated negative coverage, do I have to
remind people how Apple reacted to the Gizmodo iPhone leak? [2]

[1] - [https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/11/01/apple-
iph...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2017/11/01/apple-iphonex-
review-restricted-limited-scared-wrong-spin/#26c267a15cc9)

[2] - [http://www.mercurynews.com/2010/06/07/gizmodo-banned-from-
ap...](http://www.mercurynews.com/2010/06/07/gizmodo-banned-from-apple-event/)

~~~
Aloha
Which Apple Case?

Disney got a poor reaction because they retaliated against the Los Angeles
Times for reporting on fishy financial business between the City of Anaheim,
and the Walt Disney Company - the issue is not secrecy, its retaliation.

~~~
slg
Apple severally limited pre-release access to the iPhone X and almost all
extended access was given exclusively to non-tech sources.

Apple also has a history of doing the exact same thing as Disney by shunning
reviewers that they feel do not treat them fairly.

~~~
Aloha
it'd be the same thing, if say, Disney dumped the Times for giving a bad
review of Cars 4 - its not the same thing when you're covering a local issue,
which is corruption in the City of Anaheim. They're lacking in 'moral
equivalency'.

~~~
slg
I am not sure I see a huge distinction between the two. One is bullying the
industry press to give you favorable reviews. One is bullying the industry
press to avoid publishing stories that paint you in a negative light.

Either way, Apple has been accused of both.

~~~
fatbird
You're trying to limit this to a discussion of whether the coverage is good or
bad for the company in question, but in Disney's case, there was also the
public interest angle of the capture of Anaheim city council. I don't give a
shit if I don't have a review of the iPhone X on the release date, but if
Apple had corrupted my city council, I'd be very interested.

------
zaroth
The newspapers band together to blackout Disney in response to Disney blacking
out the LA Times, but surprise surprise, it's perfectly OK for them to use the
same tactics because, you know, they're the _good guys_.

Even if it's true, I am very suspicious when someone tries to sell me that
these kinds of tactics are "right when I use them but wrong when you do".

~~~
epistasis
Yes, that's why it's completely inappropriate to put a kidnapper in prison,
right?

~~~
zaroth
So the newspapers blacklisting Disney from awards consideration is, in your
mind, akin to trial by jury, conviction, and lawful sentencing? I think you
make my point for me.

Arguably they were _justified_ in retaliating, but it's clearly a mudfight,
and the newspapers had no problem getting into the mud with Disney and flexing
their muscle. I don't see any high ground here.

~~~
s73ver_
If you say journalists were justified in blocking Disney from awards
consideration over Disney blocking a newspaper who reported on their actions
during the Anaheim City Council elections, then you kinda disproved your
theory that there isn't any high ground.

~~~
zaroth
"Arguably" as in -- the argument could be made. It's not an argument I would
personally make, I was trying to identify with epistasis' position.

IMO the high ground is fairly simple; You report on the fact that Disney is
retaliating for a story they don't like and allow the Streisand effect to
carry you to swift and decisive victory, without having to resort to extortion
yourself.

~~~
mattmanser
The newspapers can criticise Disney's business actions while simultaneously
praising their artistic output. It's different parts of the newspaper,
different aims on informing the public. That's fair and unbiased and the job
of a journalist.

While Disney attempts to punish the commercial arm of a newspaper by attacking
their entertainment division, because of the actions of investigative
journalists in a different field.

Disney is resorting to extortion, the newspaper is simply doing their job.

~~~
zaroth
I agree Disney absolutely resorted to extortion, and I agree the newspaper
absolutely was simply doing it's job.

Now tell me... what happened _next_? If you consider it deeply, does it make
you feel at all uncomfortable? Or because the "good guys won" are we just
supposed to be giddy that Disney got rightly put in their place by the MSM?

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Or because the "good guys won" are we just supposed to be giddy that Disney
> got rightly put in their place by the MSM?_

Newspapers blocking Disney from a private function, from which Disney benefits
but does not depend, is an asymmetric response to Disney blocking a
newspaper's film screeners from screening its films, access on which the
screeners depend. When we add in that Disney moved first and in response to
truthful reporting to its detriment and in the public interest, it's pretty
clear that this private dispute is perfectly appropriate.

~~~
zaroth
I appreciate the well written response, and you have my upvote. I remain
suspicious when powerful interests act in ways that appear to be morally
justified but which just-so-happen to be strongly in their own financial
interest. Perhaps it was all just a happy coincidence.

