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Deleting and destroying finished movies

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Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#341

Post by jowea »

aquova wrote: post #3
delichon wrote: post #2

The contrary argument, that a creator has the right to destroy their creation, is made in the Gary Cooper movie "The Fountainhead" (1949).

Even then it's not quite an apples to apples comparison. From what I understand, everyone directly involved in the making of this film is proud of the work and wants it to be released, it's just the bean counters and executives (who I would not consider the "creators" of the film) who want to destroy the creation for ego and tax reasons.

Which is also part of the argument on TFA, bringing what in part of Europe is known as "moral rights of artists".

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#342

Post by jowea »

kuratkull wrote: post #71

Kinda weird to bring legislation into it. Should my employer not be allowed to delete my code because it's my special little snowflake?

I don't see how it is socially beneficial to incentivize wasting millions worth of human effort with taxation benefits.

I don't think it is exactly the same thing with a more utilitarian thing like code. Even then, I'm not convinced outright tossing code out should be incentivized.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#343

Post by MrNeon »

pests wrote: post #339
MrNeon wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the public" and "public" are two different things. the labor and resource markets are private, not public.

The markets maybe. Markets aren't the thing though.

Neither are the things in question, the resources for movie making are not public, crew isn't public, actors aren't public. It's not a public resource in any way.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#344

Post by ok_dad »

gruez wrote: post #62
ok_dad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why should a studio be allowed to claim a movie they destroyed on taxes again? I’m not interested in the answer, “it’s legal,” because a lot of things are legal that should be illegal and vice versa, I’m looking for your moral reasoning here as to why this shouldn’t be made illegal.

>I’m looking for your moral reasoning here as to why this shouldn’t be made illegal. If you read the thread more carefully, you'll see I never made such a claim. The only claim I made is that it's not fraud. I thought this was pretty clear with my earlier comment: > "fraud" doesn't mean "losing money in a manner I don't like", so I ask again: where's the deception here?

The deception is that normal people won’t expect you can destroy your own property and claim insurance without being put in the clink.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#345

Post by ok_dad »

travisjungroth wrote: post #78
ok_dad wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I burn down my house and claim insurance or tax losses, they’ll laugh and send me to jail. Explain how a corporation doing the effectively the same thing should get a write off. It’s a sham.

A company buys a balloon making machine for $100k. They use the machine and depreciate it over the years to $20k, getting $80k of deductions over the years. They decide to stop making these balloons. Someone offers them $1k but they decline. They destroy the machine, and have a $20k loss on their taxes. This is all above board, totally normal behavior. There are reasons to be against destroying these movies, but tax…

They used the machine here, and depreciation rules mean you can do that, but most companies will still try and keep using a machine until it’s no longer working for that process, whether or not it was depreciated fully. Also, I expect there are different time windows for dormant equipment depreciation and while laptops might depreciate in five years I doubt industrial equipment does at the same rate.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#346

Post by tpmoney »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #334
tpmoney wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look you’re arguing that they should throw good money after bad. And both of us are just speculating on what the actual numbers are. We all agree that at some point before this, if they cancel the project and write it off, no one cares. So all this boils down to is whether or not you believe their accountants suddenly become wrong or liars about their expected expenses and returns the moment the “final” edit is commi…

> Look you’re arguing that they should throw good money after bad. Yes, when something is already done , the vast majority of the time you should throw enough good money at it for delivery . Especially when you can make a contract to guarantee you get paid more than that. Upfront, even! > So all this boils down to is whether or not you believe their accountants suddenly become wrong or liars about their expected expe…

So then I have to ask, if it’s so easy to just sell it off, spending next to nothing and getting more than the tax write off, what if your proposed reason for why they aren’t doing that? Why have they chosen to lose (according to the article in question) $50 million dollars when according to you they can just do nothing at all except give it to someone else and instantly turn that loss into a gain (or at least a lesser loss). And if it’s that easy, why are the studios accountants so blind to this easy solution which is so obvious to you?

There is no world in which “because tax write offs” make sense as an answer to this question if your claims of being able to turn around if not a profit than a smaller loss so easily are true.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#347

Post by Dylan16807 »

tpmoney wrote: post #346
Dylan16807 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Look you’re arguing that they should throw good money after bad. Yes, when something is already done , the vast majority of the time you should throw enough good money at it for delivery . Especially when you can make a contract to guarantee you get paid more than that. Upfront, even! > So all this boils down to is whether or not you believe their accountants suddenly become wrong or liars about their expected expe…

So then I have to ask, if it’s so easy to just sell it off, spending next to nothing and getting more than the tax write off, what if your proposed reason for why they aren’t doing that? Why have they chosen to lose (according to the article in question) $50 million dollars when according to you they can just do nothing at all except give it to someone else and instantly turn that loss into a gain (or at least a less…

> So then I have to ask, if it’s so easy to just sell it off, spending next to nothing and getting more than the tax write off, what if your proposed reason for why they aren’t doing that?

Yes, I have been asking the same question. None of these articles explain the actual accounting that's happening.

Something is more complicated here. But I don't think it's "it would cost too many millions of dollars just to sell"

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#348

Post by travisjungroth »

ok_dad wrote: post #345
travisjungroth wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company buys a balloon making machine for $100k. They use the machine and depreciate it over the years to $20k, getting $80k of deductions over the years. They decide to stop making these balloons. Someone offers them $1k but they decline. They destroy the machine, and have a $20k loss on their taxes. This is all above board, totally normal behavior. There are reasons to be against destroying these movies, but tax…

They used the machine here, and depreciation rules mean you can do that, but most companies will still try and keep using a machine until it’s no longer working for that process, whether or not it was depreciated fully. Also, I expect there are different time windows for dormant equipment depreciation and while laptops might depreciate in five years I doubt industrial equipment does at the same rate.

The motivation to stop using the machine wouldn’t be deprecation but just some external business reason. You can also change the deprecation schedule and the numbers, the idea is the same.

The overall point is I don’t think it’s rare to destroy an asset that you could sell, and to take a deduction for that. Comments were calling that fraud.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#349

Post by imgabe »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #324
imgabe wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> From the moral perspective, it is clear that WB clearly had real expenses. They spent money, bought rights, and tons of workers were paid good money. Yes, they had expenses . You seem to have a very very rudimentary understanding of accounting and have conflated expenses with losses. An expense is not a loss. If you buy a factory for $1 million, you didn't lose $1 million dollars. You now have an asset, a factory,…

The value of a destroyed movie is zero. How is that a lie?

No it’s not. If someone offered $10 million for the movie and they chose to destroy it instead, then destroying the movie had a value > $10 million to them because they chose that over the money. If it were worth zero, then why wouldn’t they take $10 million in exchange for something they believe is worth $0?

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#350

Post by arpa »

MrNeon wrote: post #343
pests wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The markets maybe. Markets aren't the thing though.

Neither are the things in question, the resources for movie making are not public, crew isn't public, actors aren't public. It's not a public resource in any way.

money is a public resource.
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