WGA calls on Hollywood studios to combat AI plagiarism
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) is urging Hollywood studios to take immediate action against the growing issue of AI plagiarism. It’s a call to action that echoes the union’s concerns during the lengthy 2023 writer’s strike.
WGA calls out major studios
The WGA East and West recently sent a letter to CEOs of major studios. They include Netflix, Walt Disney Co., NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, Sony Pictures, Amazon MGM Studios and Warner Bros. Discovery.
In the letter obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the WGA claims that tech companies like Apple and Meta have “looted” the studios’ intellectual property while studios have failed to act against the violations.
“After this industry has spent decades fighting piracy, it cannot stand idly by while tech companies steal full libraries of content for their own financial gain,” the letter states.
AI models trained on copyrighted material
The letter cites a November article in The Atlantic, which reported that thousands of movies and TV episodes were being used to train AI models.
The WGA accuses studios of allowing “tech companies to plunder entire libraries without permission or compensation,” ultimately harming WGA members.
AI’s growing role in Hollywood
Despite the controversy, AI continues to gain traction in Hollywood. In September, Lionsgate—the studio behind franchises like “John Wick” and “Hunger Games”—announced a partnership with the AI video startup Runway. The technology is marketed as a tool to help filmmakers and creative teams generate cinematic visuals.
Legal victories for creatives
However, artists have recently seen progress in their legal battles against AI. In August, a federal court allowed a copyright infringement claim against AI art generators to move forward.
The case, brought by concept artist Karla Ortiz, centers on how AI firms may have used copyrighted materials to train models like Stable Diffusion. The lawsuit could significantly impact the future use of AI in Hollywood.
Pink Floyd sells music and likeness rights to Sony for $400 million
After years of drama and a whole lot of backstage bickering, British rock band Pink Floyd is cashing in on their unique sound and likeness. The band has officially struck a deal to sell their recorded music, name and license rights to Sony in a deal reportedly worth $400 million.
Sony now controls the band’s recordings, brand and merchandise rights, though the songwriting rights remain with the individual members.
The sale includes their famous albums like “The Dark Side of the Moon” and “The Wall,” adding to Sony’s growing catalogue of legendary artists.
The sale marks one of the largest music catalogue deals in recent years. Despite decades of tension between key band members Roger Waters and David Gilmour, the deal was able to be agreed upon along with drummer Nick Mason. It also included the estates of keyboardist Richard Wright and founding member Syd Barrett.
The path wasn’t easy. Waters’ controversial political statements have caused delays and scared off buyers in the past. He’s been outspoken about Israel, Ukraine and Russia.
With this agreement, Sony takes over one of the most valuable music catalogues.
While the band has stayed quiet about the deal, it’s been confirmed by multiple sources.
Over the last few years, other high-profile artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Justin Timberlake, Shakira, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and others have sold their music catalogues, some for as much as nine figure sums.
Blame game: What’s causing massive layoffs in video games amid record year?
Projects are being canceled and studios shuttered amid a wave of layoffs in the video game industry that has put thousands out of jobs. But many are wondering what’s driving these deep cuts after video game revenue hit another record in 2023.
The new year is off to a rough start for those working in gaming. In January and February alone, Kotaku reports that more than 8,100 people have or will be laid off. This is headlined by EA cutting 5% of its workforce, Sony letting go of 900 employees from its PlayStation division, and Microsoft laying off 1,900 Activision-Blizzard and Xbox employees.
“It’s both the best year and the worst year for the games industry,” Aldora co-founder and CEO Joost van Dreunen told Straight Arrow News.
“The expectation for 2024 is a flat year. 2023 was such a blowout year in terms of these big releases that we’re now seeing,” he said. “Everybody kind of took a step back and said, ‘Let’s take it easy because 2024 doesn’t look like it’s going to be amazing.’”
Behind the company curtain
While software sales have been massive, lagging hardware sales could be to blame for some of the cuts.
“Sony probably assumed that the PlayStation 5 would trend the same way that PS2, 3 and 4 did,” said Michael Pachter, managing director at Wedbush Securities. “And it’s not selling as many, period. They’re three full years into the cycle and they sold 54 million units. They typically sell north of 20 million a year.”
Meanwhile, Pachter chalks up Microsoft’s layoffs to its massive acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, which was finalized last year despite objections from the Federal Trade Commission. Shortly after the cuts became public, a lawyer for the government regulator took issue with the job loss.
“Microsoft, I think, is largely a function of their combination with Activision,” Pachter said. “So it’s probably about 20% of the Activision workforce that they laid off. So there was certainly a lot of redundancy. You don’t need two CFOs or as many HR people or as many legal people.”
Joining forces
Consolidation is a huge part of the current gaming industry. Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to purchase Activision-Blizzard was the Windows-maker’s largest in its history. It also acquired ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion in 2020, adding the Doom, Fallout and Elder Scrolls series to their stable.
Well before it gobbled up some of the biggest publishers in the business, Microsoft spent $2.5 billion to buy Mojang, the studio behind Minecraft, in 2014.
“Either you invest a lot of money internally and develop it yourself or you acquire and hope it works,” van Dreunen said of the push to acquire studios.
Subscription surge
Microsoft’s recent string of acquisitions is an attempt to draw gamers to its subscription service, Game Pass, which offers a rotating list of games. It’s similar to Netflix and Hulu for video games.
“If you spend enough time in Game Pass, you never have to leave,” Pachter said. “If you spend enough time on Netflix, you never have to leave. Do you miss out on Oppenheimer? Yes, you do. But can you live without seeing Oppenheimer?”
“They rely upon scale to bring down the cost of the components… We’re not seeing component costs coming down as rapidly.”
Subscriptions help to subsidize the business as console makers often take a loss on hardware sales.
“When somebody goes and they buy an Xbox at their local retailer, we’re subsidizing that purchase somewhere between $100 and $200, with the expectation that we will recoup that investment over time through accessory sales and storefront,” Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer told The Wall Street Journal in 2022.
“They rely upon scale to bring down the cost of the components,” Pachter added. “But that’s not happening anymore. We’re not seeing component costs coming down as rapidly.”
How live games changed the game
The business behind video games was once a simple proposition: Develop games in the most cost-effective way possible, sell a lot of copies of the game, and come up with a new idea to do it again.
Today, juggernaut live games boast big player counts and screen time on the platform of the player’s choosing.
“We’ve sort of seen this inversion over the last five years, where it used to be that the platform was the biggest thing and the games would sort of tuck in within the platform,” Microsoft President of Gaming Content Matt Booty said during an episode of “The Official Xbox Podcast” in February. “Today, big games like Roblox or Fortnite could actually be bigger than any one platform. And that really has changed the way that we think about things.”
More and more, companies are looking to games as a service, which offers studios a continuing revenue model rather than relying on the initial purchase.
“You could also sort of shape the experience according to the likes of the audience.”
Joost van Dreunen
This can be done in various ways. Some of the most popular include subscriptions for playtime, a feature seen in many large-scale, multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft.
Microtransactions, low-cost purchases that can include cosmetic items or power-ups, appear in a good portion of games these days and are most prevalent in mobile games.
Then there are season passes, where users pay to have access to a progression tree that features in-game items that could be worth double or triple the player’s initial investment.
“The real rationale for season pass is not to collect the $10 for the pass, it’s to keep the player engaged with daily tasks,” Pachter said. “Because the player who comes back every day to make sure he gets his money’s worth and earns his little thing tends to stay an extra 10 or 20 or 30 minutes. And more engagement just necessarily translates to higher in-app purchases.”
“The idea is to convert monthly active users into daily active users and that conversion goes up with a season pass,” he added.
A constant stream of revenue is just part of the benefit of live service games.
“It’s much better to have live services and ongoing engagements where we build the game to 40% completion and then we just iterate on the model as we go,” van Dreunen said. “This gives you two benefits. One of them is you sidestep the issues traditionally associated with demand uncertainty.”
“But at the same time you could also sort of shape the experience according to the likes of the audience,” he continued. “So it’s much more of a back and forth rather than, ‘We develop this pristine experience right here. It’s secret and now we hope that it works.’”
“Some people like to watch movies in a theater, be entertained for two hours and go home and talk about the movie for a week,” Pachter said of the difference in models. “And others like to watch reality TV shows and watch dating shows and guess who the bachelorette is going to pick. So those are completely different experiences. Live services is far more analogous to reality TV than it is to a self-contained film.”
Exclusive game viability
Since the dawn of modern video games, console-exclusive titles have driven sales for any specific platform.
“They’ve built their fan base very strongly around these exclusives,” van Dreunen said. “Sony and Microsoft have really put together a marketing plan for the devices that have a particular personality. And so people identify very closely with.”
In February, rumors swirled that Xbox would be offering its exclusive titles to competitors PlayStation and Nintendo. In response, the gaming media painted the situation as the end of the brand.
“The gaming press plays to that stupid, infantile approach by saying, ‘Oh no, no, Microsoft, our understanding as gaming press is all console-first party titles should be exclusive. And you’re violating our preconceived notion of how it should be,’” Pachter said of the reaction.
The perceived drama culminated with a special episode of “The Official Xbox Podcast” featuring Spencer.
“So we’ve made the decision that we’re going to take four games to the other consoles, just four games, not a change to our kind of fundamental exclusive strategy,” Spencer said.
Those games are Pirate-sim Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment, a far cry from Halo and Gears of War leaving Xbox.
“I actually think Microsoft’s overarching goal is to sell Game Pass subscriptions,” Pachter said. “And their strategy is to hook the consumer. And I think that they’re acknowledging right now that they don’t have everybody.”
“What makes Fortnite so successful, makes Minecraft so successful, is that they’re available on any platform,” van Dreunen said. “And increasingly, we’ll be moving in that direction. And then we become much more platform agnostic.”
But even with these changes in the gaming industry, decades-long console wars are not heading for a peace treaty.
“I just think sales get cut in half next cycle, not to zero,” Pachter said of the next console generation. “And then they get cut in half again the next cycle, and they get cut in half again the next cycle.”
“It’s a little bit the equivalent of having really, really expensive headphones or really, really, really high-definition televisions and there’s always going to be an audience for that,” van Dreunen said. “And then there’s everybody else.”
While this year’s gaming layoffs are on track to far outpace 2023’s numbers, it doesn’t appear to be a warning sign for the industry that has seen significant growth in recent years.
“I would expect all these companies in 18 months to be rehiring a lot of the people that they just laid off,” van Dreunen said.
Fulton County DA Fani Willis testifies in Trump election interference case: The Morning Rundown, Feb. 16, 2024
The district attorney leading Georgia’s election interference case against former President Donald Trump takes the stand. And Amazon is sued after a subscriber says the addition of ads to Prime Video is ‘immoral.’ These stories and more highlight The Morning Rundown for Friday, Feb. 16, 2024.
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Lawyers for Trump and his 14 co-defendants are seeking to remove Willis from the case, as they argued that her romantic relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade presented a conflict of interest. On the stand, Willis fired back at the lawyers’ claims.
“I object to you getting records,” Willis said. “You’ve been intrusive into people’s personal lives. You’re confused. Do you think I’m on trial? These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I’m not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial.”
A former friend and coworker of the district attorney testified Willis and Wade had been romantically linked before Willis hired Wade for the case, an allegation both parties deny. Though the relationship has since ended, attorneys for the defendants allege Willis personally profited from the case while the two were together, arguing that Wade had used his earnings to pay for trips for the two. Wade testified that Willis always paid him back.
Should Willis be disqualified and removed from the prosecution, a new attorney would be appointed who could either continue with the charges or drop the case. There are updates in other cases involving the former president; a judge in the hush money case has set a trial date for March 25. On Friday, Feb. 16, a verdict is expected in Trump’s New York civil fraud trial.
FBI informant charged with lying about Biden family’s ties to Burisma
According to the indictment, Alexander Smirnov lied to the FBI in 2020 when he said Burisma paid both Bidens $5 million. Prosecutors said Smirnov “expressed bias” against Joe Biden, who was running for president then. Smirnov’s claims have been central to House Republicans’ efforts to impeach the president over his family business dealings.
Congressman Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, called for an end to the impeachment inquiry. Meanwhile, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the Republican chair of the committee, said the inquiry will continue, claiming it’s based on “a large record of evidence.” Smirnov faces charges of making a false statement and falsification of records. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison.
New details released in Chiefs Super Bowl parade shooting
New details have been released about what led to panic following a shooting at the Super Bowl parade in Kansas City that left a woman dead and 22 others injured. Police report that about half of the injured victims are under the age of 16, with 11 children, the youngest just 6-years-old, taken to the hospital to be treated for injuries. Nine of them suffered gunshot wounds. Seven children have since been released from the hospital.
The identity of the woman who was killed in the shooting has also been confirmed. Lisa Lopez-Galvan, a mother of two and beloved radio host for the local KKFI station, died celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl victory with nearly a million other fans.
According to Kansas City police, the shooting was not terrorism or extremism; rather, it stemmed from a personal dispute between several people. Police initially detained three juveniles but released one they determined was not involved. Police said they are working with prosecutors to file charges against the other two juveniles who have been detained.
Amazon subscriber sues over ads playing on Prime Video
Details on what games and when they will be made available have not been disclosed. Revenue for Microsoft’s Xbox-related business grew by 61% in the fourth quarter, overtaking Windows in earnings, which is largely attributed to the $75 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard in October. Microsoft is now looking to generate even more revenue as its Xbox system ranks third in sales behind its rivals.
Iowa’s Caitlin Clark becomes all-time NCAA women’s basketball scorer
History was made in college sports last night as Iowa Hawkeyes guard Caitlin Clark became women’s college basketball’s all-time leading scorer. Clark only needed to score 8 points early in the game against Michigan to break the NCAA record.
Hitting a three-pointer to reach the milestone, Clark scored a career-best 49 points in the game in Iowa city, which put her at the top of the list with 3,569 career points. WNBA star Kelsey Plum, who previously held the college record, said she is “grateful to pass the baton” to Clark.
From AI-controlled cars to transparent OLED TVs: Top innovations at CES 2024
At CES 2024, cutting-edge innovations showcase the latest advancements in tech. AI-powered machines and electric vehicles were the top contenders for best of show, and here are some of those standouts.
Sony showcased a new prototype car called AFEELA during CES 2024, demonstrating the capability to control the vehicle using a PlayStation DualSense controller. Sony emphasized the PS5 controller capabilities were just for the tech demo.
The prototype car, which boasts the ability to use Unreal Engine-driven augmented reality (AR) on its dash screens, can project colossal monsters onto the road as well as navigation destinations during driving, giving users more entertainment-driven features.
The car’s characteristics and capabilities indicate a unique blend of gaming technology and advancements in the automotive industry.
LG unveiled the LG SIGNATURE OLED T, the world’s first wireless transparent OLED TV.
The 77-inch TV features a transparent 4K OLED screen, seamlessly blending into its environment when turned off.
The transparent display removes traditional TV constraints, allowing users to place it anywhere using the Zero Connect Box and its wireless transmission technology. Users can switch to vibrant-color OLED viewing with enhanced picture quality powered by the new α (Alpha) 11 AI processor.
Holoconnects stole the spotlight with its Holobox, an AI-powered holographic solution resembling a futuristic phone booth.
Demonstrating almost no latency, the Holobox projected lifelike holographic renditions of individuals, offering an immersive conversational experience. CEOs and attendees alike engaged in realistic discussions, breaking down geographical barriers.
On the horizon of urban mobility, Hyundai Motor Group and Supernal presented the S-A2, an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Anticipated to hit the market by 2028, this aircraft introduces a new era of affordable, everyday passenger air travel, emphasizing efficiency and environmental sustainability.
More companies pause ads on X over Musk endorsing antisemitic post
Musk’s comment not only resulted in a response from major advertisers but also from the White House, which said it was “unacceptable to repeat the hideous lie…at any time, let alone after the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” referring to the terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel last month that killed at least 1,200 people.
A group of more than 150 Jewish leaders across the political spectrum released a statement calling on advertisers to pull ads from X, and saying that the post “was implicit support for Nazism.”
“Elon Musk is spreading the kind of antisemitism that leads to massacres,” the statement read. “And advertisers are funding the platform that allows him to spread his ideology to hundreds of millions people.”
Musk, who bought the social media site formerly known as Twitter in October 2022, spoke out on Friday, Nov. 17, against advertisers who were pulling their ads. Musk said X would be filing a lawsuit against Media Matters, a liberal media watchdog group that accused X of placing ads next to posts supporting Hitler and the Nazi party.
Musk called the group’s allegations a “fraudulent attack.”
Musk has also defended his post on X saying that he wants nothing but the best for humanity.
“This past week, there were hundreds of bogus media stories claiming that I am antisemitic,” Musk wrote. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
‘Barbenheimer’ is a billion-dollar blast for box office but strikes loom large
It’s Barbie’s world now. The reigning queen of the box office has pulled in around $800 million globally through two weeks, while domestic totals topped more than a third of a billion dollars.
But the box office magic doesn’t stop there. Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer” had the best second weekend ever for an R-rated summer movie at $46.6 million, becoming the first R-rated film to gross more than $10 million per day for 10 days in a row. So far “Oppenheimer” has brought in more than $400 million worldwide.
“There are headwinds happening right now amidst this sugar high that we’re on with ‘Barbenheimer,’” Comscore Senior Media Analyst Paul Dergarabedian said.
How are strikes having an immediate impact?
“No question that the writers’ strike and the actors’ strike have a profound impact the longer this goes on, meaning actors can’t actively promote their films, go on talk shows, do Q&As, all those various appearances, red carpets,” Dergarabedian said. “And that certainly puts a damper a bit on the marketing efforts. And then beyond that, if you don’t have writers writing scripts, you don’t have movies in the pipeline. So that will eventually slow down, maybe not completely dry up.”
The actors’ strike will certainly impact more star-driven movies in terms of marketing, Dergarabedian said. But he doesn’t blame just that for the Disney “Haunted Mansion” flop, which came out one week after “Barbenheimer” and brought in a measly $24 million domestically on its first weekend.
“The steamroller that is ‘Barbenheimer’ was just gonna take out everything in its wake,” he said. “And I think that happened with ‘Haunted Mansion.’ The good news, I think, for ‘Haunted Mansion’ is that Halloween is right around the corner, Disney+ is waiting.”
How long before the content machine dries up?
“The longer this goes, and especially when we get into the holiday movie season, awards season, where it’s really important that the actors and filmmakers go out and talk about those movies, that’s a big deal,” Dergarabedian said. “And then beyond that, again, if you don’t have scripts being written, you can’t produce movies. And if you don’t have movies, what are you going to go to the movie theater for?”
Hollywood is already making adjustments in the wake of the strikes, which have had little movement over the past months. For instance, Sony pushed back the release date of “Gran Turismo” by two weeks amid the strikes, now set to come out Aug. 25.
Meanwhile, the Writers Guild of America and major studios have agreed to meet this week for the first time since the writers’ strike began in May.
How ‘Barbenheimer’ bolstered the box office
Movie theaters will have no say in strike negotiations, though they’ll surely be impacted the longer they go on. But for now, the box office is basking in the sun of “Barbenheimer,” the best cinematic movement since before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think this is the greatest thing – the ‘Barbenheimer’ phenomenon – that could have happened for movie theaters. Because if the naysayers aren’t silenced at this point about thinking that the movie theater is gonna go away and streaming is gonna take over, I don’t know what you have to do,” Dergarabedian said. “There’s nothing like that cultural resonance that a movie theater release can bring.”
Even with Activision Blizzard, Microsoft wouldn’t top this list of 5 gaming giants
The European Union and United Kingdom are divided on regulatory approval of Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The U.K.’s main concern is that the deal would give the Xbox maker too much control in the gaming arena. But this merger still wouldn’t give Microsoft the highest revenue in the industry. Here are the biggest gaming companies in this week’s Five for Friday.
5: Activision Blizzard
Activision Blizzard’s $7.5 billion in revenue in 2022 was enough to make it the world’s fifth largest gaming player. Last year, it had the highest selling mobile game with Candy Crush Saga and the biggest selling console game in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Its back catalog of games — in the Spyro the Dragon, Tony Hawk and Crash Bandicoot series — are enough to get Microsoft’s attention. That doesn’t even account for the hugely successful World of Warcraft.
But the company has faced a culture problem with California suing over a “frat boy” environment following claims of sexual harassment. Unfortunately, it’s not the only gaming company that has faced legal issues due to its handling of the workplace.
4: Nintendo
Japan’s Nintendo was founded in 1889, making Japanese playing cards at the time. It’s now a nostalgia-driven gaming behemoth that made $12 billion in revenue last year on the back of a unique brand of games. Mario, Zelda and Pokemon continue to be blockbuster franchises.
Nintendo also got grandma off the couch to play Wii bowling in the mid-2000s. There are even studies that show it can prevent dementia. Its latest console, the Nintendo Switch, has been a huge hit, selling 125 million units, making it the third best selling console of all time.
3: Microsoft
The $16.2 billion Microsoft made from gaming in fiscal year 2022 is just 8% of its overall business. Activision Blizzard would be the company’s biggest acquisition ever, which is pretty significant considering it has faced criticism dating back decades for being too big.
The Windows maker spent billions of dollars in recent years to buy ZeniMax media, the publisher of hits in the Doom and Elder Scrolls series, and Mojang, the studio behind Minecraft. All of this is to bolster its cloud gaming offering, which has been the biggest issue for regulators in the Activision Blizzard takeover talks.
2: Tencent
China’s Tencent is one of the biggest entertainment conglomerates on the planet. The company’s gaming division brought in more than $24 billion in 2022 and that’s only 31% of its total revenue.
Tencent has a stake in many major players in gaming, the most significant of which has been League of Legends maker Riot Games and Fortnite developer Epic Games. The first quarter of 2023 saw more growth in the gaming sector as it makes a play to be the most dominant player in the space.
1: Sony
Japan’s Sony will still be No. 1 with $26.5 billion in annual gaming revenue even if Microsoft is able to close the deal with Activision. But the PlayStation maker is still doing its best to stop its rival’s acquisition.
Sony’s first foray into gaming was a partnership with Nintendo to make what was essentially the SNES-CD. The partnership fell apart and the tech eventually became the first PlayStation. While it’s onto pushing the PS5, the PlayStation 2 is the best selling console of all time.
The deal has been in limbo since Microsoft made the bid more than a year ago, facing challenges by antitrust agencies in the U.S., EU and U.K. Activision Blizzard, which is home to brands like Call of Duty, Warcraft and Candy Crush, would be Microsoft’s biggest takeover to date.
Sony is the biggest challenger to the deal in the private sector. The company has argued Microsoft’s ability to make Call of Duty an exclusive Xbox game would damage Sony’s business. To allay those concerns, Microsoft has already offered long-term agreements to keep Call of Duty on other platforms. Last month, the company signed 10-year agreements with Nintendo and Nvidia. In December, Microsoft President Brad Smith said Microsoft also offered Sony a 10-year contract to make Call of Duty available on PlayStation the same day it comes out on Xbox.
The offer to license deals to rivals seems to have done the trick in the EU, where regulators are usually tougher on tech than those in the U.S. But Microsoft is facing a changing dynamic at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission with progressive antitrust enforcer Lina Khan at the helm.
The FTC has asked a judge to block the deal outright, while the U.K. has suggested Microsoft sell off Call of Duty to make it work, something Smith has said it’s not willing to do.
The FTC and Khan are coming off a high-profile loss against Meta, failing to block the Facebook-company’s deal to buy virtual reality startup Within. That deal closed last month after Meta’s victory. The FTC trial against Microsoft is set to begin Aug. 2.
You’ve got mail? Here are 5 companies you probably didn’t know still exist
We’ve all had a moment like this. You’re in a dentist office waiting room. You reach for the stack of magazines on the table and think to yourself, “Wait, Reader’s Digest still exists?” We’re taking a look at some of the companies you may not realize are still hanging on in this week’s Five for Friday.
#5: Kodak
Kodak filed for bankruptcy just over a decade ago but surprisingly it’s still in business. Cellphones made a huge dent in its consumer photography business but Kodak does have Polaroid-esque instant-print cameras which have been making a comeback. Kodak is also a big player in the movie business, working with IMAX to develop the “next generation of film cameras.” And I bet you didn’t know Kodak dipped its toe in pharmaceuticals. Back in 2020 it did land in some hot water due to a prospective deal with the federal government to manufacture generic drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic. It sent Kodak’s stock price skyrocketing, but in the end all they received was an investigation into insider trading.
#4: RadioShack
RadioShack has been around for more than a century. It was once a haven for tech-tinkerers looking to be on the cutting edge. But the consumer electronics industry exploded, especially online, and the Shack hasn’t found where it fits in since. RadioShack filed for bankruptcy twice in the last decade, in 2015 and 2017. Now it operates a cryptocurrency exchange with its own token, which they announced with a series of vulgar tweets. It also appears they are attempting to cash in on the meme of their irrelevance by selling nostalgia-laced merchandise.
#3: Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey
Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey dominated the circus world since the 1870s. Seeing the “Greatest Show on Earth” was a right of passage for any child for well over a century. But the new millennium brought on its demise with low attendance and protests over animal rights. In 2017 they drew the final curtain with their last show. Or so we thought. This year, Feld Entertainment announced Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey is making a comeback in 2023 but this time, without the animals that sparked criticism.
#2: Atari
Before Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo could run the video game industry, Atari had to walk. Atari was a pioneer throughout the 1970s. The Atari 2600 is a classic, featuring games like Adventure, Centipede and Pitfall. But it hasn’t been a player in the console business for decades, unless you count the console made by Lego in 2022. After filing for bankruptcy in 2013, Atari sold off its biggest intellectual property. The company is now in the blockchain business and entered a partnership to develop a group of Atari-branded gaming hotels, the first of which should pop up in Phoenix and Las Vegas.
#1: AOL
America Online was synonymous with the internet in the 1990s, but now it’s just a company that provides emails to old-timers. AOL was so successful in 2000 that it bought Time Warner for $182 billion, the largest merger in American history. Just 15 years later, Verizon bought AOL for only $4.4 billion. Surprisingly, as of 2021, AOL still had 1.5 million paying subscribers, although they are really paying for ID protection and limited technical support.