Amazon will become the newest member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), a move that is likely to have significant ramifications as the e-commerce giant throws its weight behind the global entertainment trade and lobbying organization. As the parent of both the Prime Video streaming service and MGM Studios, as well as the force behind Amazon Web Services, the company has clout across both entertainment and technology at a level that is unparalleled among MPA principals. At $2 trillion, it becomes the largest MPA member by market cap. Netflix, which joined in 2019, is capped at $300 billion.

In 2020 Apple joined an MPA sub-group, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE). Amazon’s MPA membership, which becomes official in October, could incentivize Apple (valued at $3.2 trillion) to join. The largest MPA member that scaled up as a traditional movie studio is The Walt Disney Company, valued at $170 billion.

Amazon is at the forefront of the entertainment industry’s technological advances, in virtual production, cloud storage and artificial intelligence. Its decision to join the MPA followed what The New York Times calls “a long courtship” that reflects the company’s “ambition in the streaming and film businesses — as well as the association’s need to add muscle.”

“Welcoming Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios into our ranks will broaden our collective policymaking and content protection efforts,” MPA CEO Charles Rivkin told NYT.

“Amazon’s mission is to entertain customers around the world with compelling film and television. In order to do that, we must support storytellers, while also helping to sustain a robust entertainment industry,” Mike Hopkins, the head of Prime Video and Amazon MGM Studios said in the MPA announcement.

Variety calls the joinder “a symbol of the convergence of entertainment and Big Tech, which were separated by a sharp divide not that long ago.”

Amazon, through Prime and MGM, has been a governing board member of ACE since 2017.

Related:
Amazon MGM Studios is Joining the Motion Picture Association, Los Angeles Times, 9/19/24