alt Hacker NewsNot only movie theaters, but also movie rental and selling of VHS tapes/DVDs etc.
One could go to the favorite department store and get movies from all studios right next to each other, sorted by genre or title or similar.
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Like vertical integration isn't always bad 100% of the time, but this particular case of marrying distribution and production seems to serve minimal beneficial purpose and inevitably the main outcome is high levels of rents-collection and squeezing the people doing the actual creative work. There's pretty much nothing but up-side to forcing the two roles to remain separate.
It's probably got something to do with copyright. Like the way it interacts with markets makes this sort of arrangement net-harmful pretty much any time you see it.
Music publishing vs radio stations is a fascinating example - compulsory licensing, meaning radio stations are free to broadcast any music at all; even rules preventing radio stations and DJs from accepting payola from publishers to promote their records.