More on Those Dirty Tricks

This blog seems to be tipping more and more into the business, as opposed to the art, of animation, but it's hard to avoid when various media industries are conspiring against artists and the public.

I reported earlier (here and here) that Pixar was implicated in an illegal "no poaching" agreement with other high tech firms, meaning that if a Pixar employee applied for a job at Lucasfilm or Apple, those companies would refuse to hire the Pixar employee. Pixar returned the favour by refusing to hire applicants from Lucasfilm or Apple. That violates anti-trust laws. The damage is that it prevents employees from changing jobs or earning higher pay elsewhere. The case is about to go to trial and the Department of Justice has released some evidence that you can read below. For instance, on page 3 you can read that Lori McAdam of Pixar wrote in an internal email:

“I just got off the phone with Danielle Lambert [of Apple], and we agreed that effective now, we’ll follow a Gentleman’s agreement with Apple that is similar to our Lucasfilm agreement.”

TechCrunch - High-Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation Conference Statement 1/19/2012 - Analysis here: http:/...

(Link via TechCrunch)