231–240 of 369 posts
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You're off by almost an order of magnitude there. It's 95 years of copyright protection nonsense, not a mere 30. Edit: very few would complain if it were only 30
That is much less than “almost an order of magnitude.“
Where do you draw the line? If an artist pays a model and paints her, is the artist to be prohibited from destroying the painting because it sucks, and because the model wants credit? What about a music producer who pays a studio band to record a song that turns out to be terrible -- is the producer prohibited from deleting it? It's the tax write off for destruction that's fucked up, as @cnees says. Failures are part…
That is easy. If they claim the contract-encumbered work is worth 0 dollars for tax reasons, then anybody (who does not intend to commit breach of contract) should be allowed to buy the fully encumbered work for 0 dollars and the original owner can take the loss/write-off. That should get like the central 90% of cases. Probably need some fine-tuning to get the rest and reduce opportunities for abuse (maybe some minim…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One argument is that that particular kind of subsidy is incredibly easy to game, and so you tend to create more reward-hacking than actual benefit
They're turning $10 into $3 except at the scale of millions of dollars. What hack or gaming did they perform?
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If they irretrievably destroy it, its value becomes zero. That's the essence of being able to claim the tax loss (to "finally determine the value"). It's no different from having a stock position in a company that's in limbo. You can't claim the tax loss and keep the position. You have to get the clearinghouse to take the position for $0 in order to claim the loss. The studio's position is that they've already incurr…
I can't deliberately set fire to the money in my bank account and then write that off as a loss. The movie is an asset, it has some value, the way to determine that value is to make a good faith effort to sell it (auction or broker of some sort) and if it sells for less than you have spent making it, then you can write off the difference as a loss. Deliberately destroying the asset and then writing off the entire amo…
Where do you draw the line? If an artist pays a model and paints her, is the artist to be prohibited from destroying the painting because it sucks, and because the model wants credit? What about a music producer who pays a studio band to record a song that turns out to be terrible -- is the producer prohibited from deleting it? It's the tax write off for destruction that's fucked up, as @cnees says. Failures are part…
The line is at claiming a loss for tax purposes. Destroy the film if you like, but then you get no tax break. There's a similarity with the "hobby loss rule". In order to be a valid business who can deduct business expenses like losses, you have to demonstrate that you have a "profit intent". That means that you make at least an attempt to turn a profit on your work. If you don't, it's considered a hobby and you don'…
It's clear that the loophole is to ask Amazon and Netflix to make a secret offer.
Public auction is the solution if they do it for tax reasons and not for artistic integrity.
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That’s not how private property works. The owner doesn’t have to sell to you. Have you ever had a car totaled? Just because the insurance company salvages your vehicle doesn’t mean you get to buy it for that value.
I agree with your first paragraph, but my experience with the second is that I’ve always been offered it at that figure. (The insurance company is negotiating with you to buy the car from you. They may not want to present it in those terms, but that’s what’s going on. You own it; they have an obligation to you; in some cases, it’s advantageous to all sides for the insurance company to buy the wreckage from you. If th…
Where do you draw the line? If an artist pays a model and paints her, is the artist to be prohibited from destroying the painting because it sucks, and because the model wants credit? What about a music producer who pays a studio band to record a song that turns out to be terrible -- is the producer prohibited from deleting it? It's the tax write off for destruction that's fucked up, as @cnees says. Failures are part…
Society can always choose to draw the line. We always draw the line - criminal code, taxation, copyright.
The answer is - you gather a work group legitimized by democratic process and figure it out.
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Distribution isn't free but it's pretty cheap for getting to sell tickets in major theaters. And if it's that bad then why don't you sell to a streaming service for one million dollars? Then you only have to deliver a few files and nothing else. Contracts based on revenue are fine in this situation, aren't they? If you only get moderately low revenue, then you don't pay much into them.
>Distribution isn't free but it's pretty cheap for getting to sell tickets in major theaters. Last time I saw numbers on something like this, film advertising costs were generally assumed to be another 50-100% of the production costs. After all, those talk show appearances of all your stars don't come cheap. And your "major theaters" are going to insist on advertising. They're not going to block out precious screens…
> that's almost certainly less than the value of the tax write-off
Please explain.
If the value drops to 1 million dollars, can't you write off the rest?
If you can't, then that is exactly the problem here, there's a flaw in tax law causing destruction.
> You'll need licensing contracts, lawyer time, accounting time, and again, all the various contractual obligations that kick in on release.
They already did 99% of the contracts they need.
> 1) They can still make it impossible to recover enough of the expense costs to make releasing the film worthwhile.
I already addressed this in the comment you replied to. Sell to a streaming service in that case. But I doubt it would make that little. Also that's a big percentage to not even be part of the distribution cost.
> 2) You still need to expect to make your expenses back, regardless. Again in the above example, say instead your gross revenue contracts are only $2 million. Great, you've earned $13 million, on an expenses budget of $60 million. Not even close to beginning to pay for the expenses incurred.
No you don't "need to" do the impossible.
You already spent the $60 million, and deleting the film won't make the money reappear.
Do you want to be $60M in the hole, or do you want to be $47M in the hole?
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So summary: If they think a theatrical release requires so many dollars it's still a waste, that's one thing (though I reserve skepticism). If they won't sell it off to the highest bidder, for which they have to do almost nothing, that's a very different thing.
Destroying everything probably costs just as much as selling it off.
Kinda weird to bring legislation into it. Should my employer not be allowed to delete my code because it's my special little snowflake?