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by Polly Law | Guild Past President | December 1999
Look at what wondrous delights the Time-Warner/AOL merger brings... more content, more cheaply, in more media.
Let's see... more content... more cheaply? Gee, I wonder how they're going to do that...
The Guild and its members should oppose any and all mergers of this sort. The dwindling marketplace for graphic artists should not be further shrunk by letting the last few unmerged information corporations congeal.
The monopolistic tendencies of these "content trusts" allow them to control what few markets remain and to impose on us abusive contracts that have strangely similar terms.
Of course, AOL/Time-Warner would argue that since they are an online provider, and a publishing provider, and a cable provider, and a film provider there is no threat of monopoly. The problem is that all the different providers are "providing" the same damn product—it just comes out of different pipes.
The same economies of scale that allow the television studios to "provide" deeply discounted rates on syndicated series to their wholly owned network subsidiaries (thereby shafting the creators) will allow them to "provide" their affiliates with the art that we create (thereby shafting us).
Because this is a stock swap deal, opposition may have an effect on AOL's stock price. The further it sinks, the less likely the merger. So let's make some noise and see if we can't help put a stake in this one.
