Amazon Joins the MPA as its Newest Anti-Piracy Member Since Netflix in 2019
On October 1, 2024, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, Walt Disney Studios, and Warner Bros. Discovery, will welcome Amazon to the most exclusive club in Hollywood; the Motion Picture Association. Prime Video & Amazon MGM Studios, which encompasses Amazon's streaming platform and its film and TV production and distribution division, will become the seventh MPA member and the most recent addition since Netflix joined in 2019.
A pictorial timeline on the Motion Picture Association’s website begins with a 102-year-old photograph taken at the first meeting of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA), the organization known today as the MPA.
“Since that time, the MPA has served as the leading advocate of the film, television, and streaming industry around the world, advancing the business and art of storytelling, protecting the creative and artistic freedoms of storytellers, and bringing entertainment and inspiration to audiences worldwide,” the introduction reads.
In 2024, the MPA can be found doing all of the above in most countries around the world. Yet if intellectual property laws had been more rigorously enforced well over a century ago, the story of Hollywood may have ended before it even began. Thomas Edison’s hoarding of over 1000 patents included many that were vital to movie making. As a result, filmmakers were given a blunt choice; they could do it his way and pay for the privilege, or they could choose no way at all.
