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Deleting and destroying finished movies

rogerebert.com

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Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#271

Post by jb1991 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #266
jb1991 wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Had it been 105 year it would have been an order of magnitude That’s not true. How are you getting that number? That’s not how you calculate an order of magnitude.

You don't “calculate” orders of magnitude, that the point of manipulating them in the first place. And an order of magnitude colloquially means “one more digit”, hence the original remark. I appreciate the irony of nitpicking about a concept that merely exist to allow for low precision napkin math.

But in this case, the "napkin" math of 95 years would be off by 200 years! Hardly a useful estimate for this particular topic. Still confused where you come up with 105 years as an order of magnitude from 30.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#272

Post by MrNeon »

advael wrote: post #233
joe_guy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're turning $10 into $3 except at the scale of millions of dollars. What hack or gaming did they perform?

In this case, refusing offers to sell in favor of a strategy that simply wastes the time and effort of everyone involved in the production with no recourse. This should at the very least not allow them to write it off their taxes. Admittedly, a lot of the problems that enable this situation are more about how IP and ownership work as well as the consolidation of the entertainment industry (and every other industry fo…

> wastes the time and effort of everyone involved in the production with no recourse

Those people were already paid for their work.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#273

Post by hyperhopper »

konschubert wrote: post #262
imgabe wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

I don’t get your point. If you run a business, money that you spend is subtracted from your earnings. Are you alleging that they made the money for fun? That they never intended to release it? That’s they spent 10 dollars to save 3 dollars in taxes? And then you pay taxes on earnings. That’s not cheating and it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

> That’s they spent 10 dollars to save 3 dollars in taxes?

Yes, exactly. You're forgetting Hollywood accounting. Spending 1 dollars to somebody, 9 dollars to your other companies and saving 3 dollars later is netting you 2 dollars.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#274

Post by MrNeon »

aniforprez wrote: post #253
gruez wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your insurance policy covers that (unlikely because of this exact situation), then sure.

No insurance company in the world will pay out insurance if you commit arson against your own house because that's stupid. Same thing should apply here. Destroying a film to get a tax break at the very least should incur penalties

The penalty is that they lose money at the end of the day. It is not a sustainable business practice.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#275

Post by DoughnutHole »

pawelmurias wrote: post #268
zokier wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense is ownership of physical things natural human right?

There are biological instincts to defend your stuff . Like animals will attack you when you try to steal their things.

Many animals are extremely social - they'll attack you for taking the group's resources, they won't necessarily have any individual resources. At the extreme end you have things like ants with no individuality, but you also have social mammals that are more group-oriented than individual-oriented.

If you look at anthropology pre-modern humans were extremely family/tribe oriented. Resources were generally the property of the tribe as a whole. I don't think that the modern understanding of personal property would translate well to someone from such a culture, which makes me sceptical of the idea that personal property is an innate element of human nature.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#276

Post by konschubert »

hyperhopper wrote: post #273
konschubert wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get your point. If you run a business, money that you spend is subtracted from your earnings. Are you alleging that they made the money for fun? That they never intended to release it? That’s they spent 10 dollars to save 3 dollars in taxes? And then you pay taxes on earnings. That’s not cheating and it makes a lot of sense if you think about it.

> That’s they spent 10 dollars to save 3 dollars in taxes? Yes, exactly. You're forgetting Hollywood accounting. Spending 1 dollars to somebody, 9 dollars to your other companies and saving 3 dollars later is netting you 2 dollars.

Well, those other companies paid taxes as well.

Plus you can only save taxes if you’re paying taxes in the first place. A company that only loses money isn’t going to get paid.

I’m not sure that scheme works work out another trick.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#277

Post by pests »

MrNeon wrote: post #270
arpa wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe at some size corporations _should_ become public entities to avoid dragon disease and only those corporations having the means of production. After all, they did grow enormously big by consuming public resources and labor.

Neither the resources or the labor are public.

So these companies exist in a different reality where they draw their resources and labor from somewhere else? Where else would labor come from if not the public?

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#278

Post by hyperhopper »

konschubert wrote: post #276
hyperhopper wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s they spent 10 dollars to save 3 dollars in taxes? Yes, exactly. You're forgetting Hollywood accounting. Spending 1 dollars to somebody, 9 dollars to your other companies and saving 3 dollars later is netting you 2 dollars.

Well, those other companies paid taxes as well. Plus you can only save taxes if you’re paying taxes in the first place. A company that only loses money isn’t going to get paid. I’m not sure that scheme works work out another trick.

> Well, those other companies paid taxes as well.

How do you know? At this scale tax avoidance schemes often completely prevent this.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#279

Post by imgabe »

_giorgio_ wrote: post #236
imgabe wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'…

They can't decide that the value is zero if they got public offers from Amazon, Netflix etc 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.

I like that idea. Hold an auction. If they still want to delete it, then the maximum deduction is (expenses - highest_bid), since clearly the studio is getting some value out of not releasing the film.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#280

Post by refurb »

This article screams a lack of understanding of finances.

A finished movie doesn't cost $0 to release. There is considerable spend on promotion, distribution, etc. If you don't do it, then movie revenues would be much lower.

It doesn't make sense to spend $10M to make say $30M, when just destroying the film gets you $30M in tax benefits.

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