Is An Emmy Such An Awful Thing?

Some odd news--the Justice Department is warning the Motion Picture Academy that changing their rules to limit streaming services (read Netflix) from winning Oscars might raise antitrust and open competition law.

I don't get this.  There's no right to win an Oscar.  I don't even see how there's any right to compete for an Oscar.  The Oscars have all sorts of ornate rules as to what is eligible.  For instance, if a movie is shown on TV first, no nomination.  And if a movie is shown at a festival but doesn't get distribution for at least a week, no nomination.  Seems to me making it tougher for streaming services to get nominations is the sort of thing they do.

But even if they'd never done anything like this, so what?  The Oscars are run by a private organization (and the Academy has a colorful history--one reason it was created was to hold the line against unionization), so they can decide whatever they want.  Just as, say, the Tonys are only given to shows that run on Broadway, ignoring the considerably larger group of shows that run off-Broadway, or aren't done in New York at all, why can't the Oscars decide they want to show movies that are meant first to have serious theatrical runs.

In any case, there are plenty of better things the DOJ can do.  Let's hope they figure that out before this goes on much longer.