VidAngel's Antitrust Claims Groundless, Studios Say

VidAngel is inventing an antitrust conspiracy out of "rational, self-interested actions" taken independently, movie studio plaintiff-appellees said in a docket 17-56665 answering brief (in Pacer) filed Wednesday with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Appellees are Disney, Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Brothers. They said the studios have self-evident reasons for refusing to license VidAngel or other filtering companies -- blatant infringement of their copyrights. And they said VidAngel's antitrust conspiracy claims are based on "a few innocuous facts" -- the plaintiffs are all MPAA members, their lawyers conferred about the potentially infringing business and they sought an injunction to stop VidAngel instead of doing business with it. VidAngel is appealing a lower court's 2017 rejection of antitrust claims against the studios for refusing to deal with it (see 1802140016). It didn't comment Thursday.