Hollywood heavyweight with Silicon world view

Netflix argues it has suffered a talent drain of its own in recent months, with several highranking defections to rival streamers and other entertainment firms. Netflix is also a bit of an oddity, a Hollywood heavyweight with a Silicon Valley high-tech world view. Among Big Tech players, the niceties of obtaining talent and intellectual property have seldom been strictly observed. Hollywood, by contrast, has spent generations working with California legislators to fine tune the laws to protect ownership of both content and the employees who create it. Netflix has long argued — so far, without success in the courts — that when it coaxes executives at rival firms to break their employment contracts it is fighting for their “freedom” from the “Hollywood establishment.” But Netflix is having a tough time preserving its image as a scrappy innovator smashing obsolete Tinseltown traditions. With a market cap of $227 billion (U.S.), its own studios worldwide, and several Oscarwinning films to its credit, Netflix is the new Hollywood establishment. And with profits of $2.8 billion, Netflix can easily absorb its legal bills, and appears content to treat the legal fees it racks up in its allegedly dubious talent search as a mere cost of doing business. Netflix has also lately become an interloper in the lucrative video-game business , suggesting that as it continues to diversify, no one in the entertainment world will be safe from its marauding.

Bottom line

Lawyers are bingeing on all the lawsuits Netflix’s rivals are launching against it, accusing it of abusive practices. But there appears to be no curbing the streamer’s pursuit of entertainment-industry dominance.