Unfairness in Contractual Agreements with Streaming Corporations & Suggestions to Promote Fairness

Streaming corporations are dominating the field of entertainment, especially during lockdowns amid the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) services, such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+, saw the largest increase in viewing compared to broadcasters and other entertainment services in the United Kingdom. In their study on viewing habits during lockdown, researchers Kazi Turin Rahman and Md. Zahir Uddin Arif noted that U.K. adults are consuming double the SVoD content when compared to their viewing habits before the pandemic. This is in part due to lockdown restrictions preventing cinemas from being open, as illustrated by Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. who announced that all 17 of their films in 2021 would also be available for viewing on the subscription service HBOMax the same day as their theatrical premieres. However, the shift from cinema and broadcasting to SVoD has been present before the pandemic, only being strengthened by lockdowns and hybrid releases of content in both theatres and streaming services simultaneously.While this is good news for SVoD platforms, their power within the entertainment industry can create issues with how they reach new contractual agreements with current talent, incoming artists, and smaller production companies. This article will highlight these issues, as well as outline current contract law in relation to the protection of weaker parties, and finally offer potential solutions with the goal of limiting the proposal and use of predatory contracts between SVoD corporations and talent, as well as smaller production companies.