Chris Sprigman

Christopher Jon Sprigman explains what copyright can learn from its antitrust cousin When the Supreme Court ruled in Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith (2023) that the legendary artist’s transformation of a photographer’s shot of the musician Prince didn’t c...

NYU does a nice write-up of my recent article on the Supreme Court's Warhol fair use case and its relationship to antitrust analysis. www.law.nyu.edu/news/ideas/c...

Some have; some haven't. Disney/Pixar has been very successful. As has Sirius/XM. These and other successful media mergers have benefited the businesses concerned and consumers. Then, of course, there's AOL/Time Warner, which was a disaster.

The entire report stinks of pandering. I recommend you read it on an empty stomach.

Something every 2026/28 Dem should commit to is investigations of any company that did deals with Trump. A kind of forward guidance to get companies to think twice in advance of what’s coming.

I read the report. The suggestion that pro-Zionist "academic perspectives" are "underrepresented" appears to be based on student complaints. And of course student complaints are politically unbiased and based on systematic study and a deep knowledge of the field and the relevant literature. [/snark]

Once Brad makes it official, I hope you will join me in supporting him. /end

Brad Lander set to challenge Rep. Dan Goldman from the left The city comptroller and former mayoral candidate will have the endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, two people tell POLITICO.

Much to my delight, Brad Lander is launching a primary challenge to my underperforming congressman, Dan Goldman, who refused to endorse Zohran Mamdani, and (relatedly) will defend any form of Israeli brutality. 1/ www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

Torture Techniques from CIA Black Sites Were Used at Alligator Alcatraz Amnesty International, interviewing migrant detainees, identifies use of the confinement box. There can be no denying it is a torture prison

They're using the confinement box, one of the most horrific methods of CIA torture in the post-9/11 black sites, against migrants now. This is the direct result of the lack of consequences for the architects of the torture program. Either there will be criminal penalties for this or it will expand.

I think a lot of the production rivals are mad at Spotify because they leverage their data. That’s an efficiency that they pioneered (actually, it was porn industry companies that pioneered it, but Netflix was a fast follower that did it more pervasively).

The production side is also very competitive with a lot of players.

That doesn’t count VOD services, including those owned by huge cable and satellite providers. By any measure the market is competitive and will remain so post-merger.

The thread understates the level of streaming competition. Netflix competes with Amazon, Paramount+, Apple TV, Disney+ (which also owns Hulu), YouTube (which also offers live TV), Tubi (ditto), and more than a dozen other services, some of which specialize in particular content.

It’s not some kind of smooth function. Competitive incentives change when the merged firm has market power. For reasons I explained I don’t believe the merged firm will have market power.

That's not what I'm saying, at all.

That's not basic econ at all. It's much more complicated than that.

Here's my antitrust analysis of the Netflix/WB deal. /end bsky.app/profile/cjsp...

Why would Trump do that? B/c he's making antitrust into yet another pay-for-play element of his overall grift. And Larry Ellison, the right-wing billionaire who owns Paramount, has already paid up. 2/

Trump Stands in the Middle as Netflix and Paramount Vie for a Megadeal

Paramount has made hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros. As I wrote earlier (see third post), Netflix acquisition of WB does not pose serious antitrust concerns. What *is* concerning is likelihood Trump will use antitrust as a weapon to hand WB to Paramount. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/12/08/b...

Urbanites should revolt against paying for this bailout for Trump voters who voted to inflict this chaos on themselves.

Ladies and gentlemen, a moment of honesty from your partisan, unaccountable Supreme Court.

Thank you for reading.

Absolutely. And Netflix's stance on these issues is vastly more pro-consumer.

You have fixed ideas and responding to them further is helpful to neither you nor me.

You have fixed ideas I’m responding to them is helpful to neither you nor me

Wealth distribution is absolutely a problem—one which antitrust can touch (Indirectly) by preventing agglomerations of economic power that lead to outsized political influence. But again, prohibiting all mergers that could lead to efficiencies and job losses would be a prescription for poverty.

(a) the fashion industry has no sense of humor whatsoever. And (b) there are a few morons in a hurry—always, everywhere—and it’s a scandal that we make TM decisions based on them.

If you think that mergers shouldn’t happen every time efficiencies might create job cuts, you’re going to be living in a much poorer country soon.

In any event, antitrust is concerned with practices that harm labor. So if the merged firm was going to be a monopsony buyer of labor, that would be a problem, but that’s not going to happen here.

In the case of sprint, being trapped at a dying firm is not pro worker. More generally, competition is dynamic, and part of that dynamism is instability for labor. If we had an more comprehensive social safety net, that instability would be less painful.

Unless you think that you or someone else is in a position to tell consumers what they should like, and that antitrust law should enforce that.