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Deleting and destroying finished movies

rogerebert.com

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Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#61

Post by isthatafact »

gruez wrote: post #13
nyc_data_geek wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, that sounds fine, but the taxpayer ought to not be responsible for footing the bill in any way. The studios do this for the tax writeoff, which is tantamount to robbing the people paying taxes (eg:us) blind.

It's not "robbing the people paying taxes" because the money was never theirs to begin with. Taxes are paid on profits, and if profits are not made they're not owed. Suppose I make a painting worth $1000. If I had sold that, I would have been required to pay taxes on that at the marginal rate, say 40% so $400 worth of taxes. Instead of doing that, I set it on fire. Does that mean I just robed taxpayers of $400?

It feels like tax fraud. Given that it is apparently not possible to prove that they deleted the movie, it seems like the IRS should assume that they still have the movie.

I bought a stock share for $1000. I wanted to sell it for $2000, but no one was willing to pay more than $400, so I decided to tell the IRS that it was worth zero and take the full tax write off (which was tax fraud).

On top of that, refusing to release or sell the movie should have triggered a shareholder lawsuit.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#62

Post by gruez »

ok_dad wrote: post #50
gruez wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your scenario the illegal parts would be: 1. claiming insurance on it. AFAIK this isn't applicable in the case of the movie 2. endangering other houses by doing it in a non-approved way Other than that setting houses that you own on fire isn't illegal.

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?

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#63

Post by ysofunny »

AlbertCory wrote: post #22

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…

where to draw the line?

when other people get their hands on the files

we must admit (and later on embrace) the digital possibilities we have. if the artist or model want it deleted they best make sure nobody copied it first else, in my opinion, they must convince every person holding a copy from voluntarily agreeing to destroy it.

nobody should have a right to force other persons to act against their own will even if they created some artifact they no longer fully control

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#64

Post by Notatheist »

Schnitz wrote: post #45
AlbertCory wrote: post #22

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…

Where do you draw the line? If someone buys the Mona Lisa and burns it for the tax credit, is the owner to be prohibited from doing so based on the public interest?

I feel the Mona Lisa's destruction would be more valuable to culture than its continued existence. Imagine the headlines, the people with stories of having seen it in person, the conspiracy theories...

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#65

Post by gruez »

AlbertCory wrote: post #51
gruez wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is zero when the hard drive holding the only copy is degaussed.

no, if you had an offer for $30M, then that was the value.

And the value went to $0 after destroying it. I don't see what's the issue is here.

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#66

Post by sib »

blincoln wrote: post #14

Seems like a less controversial solution would be to allow the same tax write-off if the studio releases the film for free distribution (e.g. via the Internet Archive), either into the public domain, or under a license like Creative Commons Noncommercial if there's concern about implicitly allowing derivative works by competitors or similar.

Since - as only one example of the complexity involved - the music used in the film is almost certainly licensed and must be paid for, and the studio does not "own" it, there's no way that they can simply release it for free distribution or put it into the public domain...

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#68

Post by gruez »

exe34 wrote: post #46
gruez wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you spent a bunch of time and resources making a movie, and then decide to shred it, did you not lose money?

If I burn down my house, I lose money. Should I be able to claim insurance on that?

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

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#69

Post by Andrex »

Barrin92 wrote: post #11

"One of WBD’s most notorious post-merger decisions was deleting an entire finished feature, “Batgirl,” that had an estimated budget of $90 million, to claim a tax write-off" I feel like if someone reads that in a thousand years they're going to look at us the same way we look at some ancient tribe worshipping idols. Years of work and cultural artifacts destroyed for the accounting department, that's nuts.

It's not destroyed, it exists somewhere. And IMO it's just as likely it sees release in the next 1000 years as it is accidentally destroyed or lost.

Movie studio regimes change all the time, and it's possible to un-tax-write-off a work (it's just a giant pain in the ass).

Adult Swim got Sym-Bionic Titan and IGPX back from the dead, and they're owned by the same parent company (Warner Bros.)

Re: Deleting and destroying finished movies

#70

Post by derivative7 »

Schnitz wrote: post #45
AlbertCory wrote: post #22

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…

Where do you draw the line? If someone buys the Mona Lisa and burns it for the tax credit, is the owner to be prohibited from doing so based on the public interest?

If I pay 25% marginal income tax and I make a profit of 200 million dollars, I get to keep 150 million. If instead I decide to buy the Mona Lisa for 200 million dollars, and burn it I walk away with nothing but the satisfaction of not have given one cent to the government. Please tell me how my evil mastermind plan to burn the Mona Lisa works anyway?
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