The United States Government versus Paramount Studios

The Paramount Decree

The Paramount decision was a supreme court ruling in 1948 against the major film studios in Hollywood famously known as the 'big 5',which were the main fully integrated film studios between 1920s-1948. These studios were Fox, Loew's incorporated, Paramount Pictures, RKO and Warner Brothers. The case was challenged and won by independent film producers and distributors. The court ruled the elimination of block-booking and blind buying. Block-booking involved the major studios selling only A movies with a pool of other films in which they included many B movies and shorts that were likely to be less successful, and consequently gaining a vast profit. Many of the films were unseen and caused independent studios to purchase films by blind-buying. Fundamentally prior to 1948 the main film companies referred to as the 'big 5' controlled the film industry by means of what known as the studio system in which the film companies controlled every aspect of film production and distribution by controlling production on their own lots, distribution to their own first-run theaters and exhibition through other independent theaters, but still regained control by distributing these films only by block-booking and blind buying. Essentially the court ruling against this form of monopolization in 1948, known as the Paramount decision hailed the end of the studio system that had existed since the 1920s.