> If you want to have the conversation that there should be laws breaking up creation and distribution and making exclusive distribution illegal, then go ahead
To begin that conservation, briefly, let me propose that the law should say that once annual sales of a media work are less than, for example, 10% of the peak number of annual sales for that work (in any year so far), any exclusivity deal should become void.
How that would apply to media works that are locked to a specific format (i.e. console games) is less clear. Perhaps if you are porting a game from Nintendo to PC, you should have to change all the trademarks, so that any bugs introduced by the port are associated with the PC version rather than reflecting badly on Nintendo.
There would probably also have to be very careful accounting of how much money went into the creation of a media work, so that a fair price could be set for an independent distributor buying the rights to distribute it.
To begin that conservation, briefly, let me propose that the law should say that once annual sales of a media work are less than, for example, 10% of the peak number of annual sales for that work (in any year so far), any exclusivity deal should become void.
How that would apply to media works that are locked to a specific format (i.e. console games) is less clear. Perhaps if you are porting a game from Nintendo to PC, you should have to change all the trademarks, so that any bugs introduced by the port are associated with the PC version rather than reflecting badly on Nintendo.
There would probably also have to be very careful accounting of how much money went into the creation of a media work, so that a fair price could be set for an independent distributor buying the rights to distribute it.