The Hill News

On Sunday, millions of Americans tuned in for the 84th Academy Awards. The movie industry undoubtedly enjoys the public’s speculating which films deserve the highest honors. However, the largest studios do not like Wall Street speculation about how successful movies will be before they are actually released.

In true Washington fashion, movie industry titans lobbied Congress to ban movie futures â€" financial contracts that pay out based on box office earnings. The Motion Picture Association of America got a special, and barely noticeable, ban inserted into the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill to prohibit trading based on expected box office earnings. The new ban hurts independent filmmakers looking for financial partners to bring their films to life and ultimately fans of their films, like “The Artist” and “The Descendants.” 

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