The patents company was declared to be an illegal restraint of trade and dissolved in 1915. It was soon replaced, however, by what was to become the Hollywood studio system, a vertically integrated operation in which the five major studios dominated the production, distribution and exhibition of features in the USA and much of the rest of the world. The studio system underwent substantial reorientation from the 1950s, in the face of further federal regulation and broader social change, but its dominance has remained largely in place. In the context of an industrial regime dominated by Hollywood, independent activity has.
