Just don’t let studios take the tax write off and this is all fixed
this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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I've seen others suggest that it gets surrendered to the public domain if they take the deduction. I'd be fine with that.
Wouldn't that also put the characters into public domain like Wile E Coyote? I can't imagine they'd do that for a tax write-off.
I don't think so, the character wouldn't be public domain, just the exact specific movie. So anyone could screen the movie, but people couldn't make new works based on those characters.
It wouldn't necessarily.
Basically, you'd say that this one work is copyright free, but any characters appearing in it would still have copyright under other works.
The practical effect is that you'd be able to download this movie, watch it, share it, cut up bits and pieces and use them elsewhere, but any original works based on the characters would not be allowed due to those characters still being covered from other works.
Well that would be different from how it works with Mickey Mouse and Sherlock Holmes, in both of those examples, some works involving the character are public domain and others are still under copyright. As such, people can do their own versions of Mickey mouse as long as it's the steamboat Willie version of Mickey mouse but not Mickey mouse from more recent works. People can write their own versions of Sherlock Holmes stories as long as they don't have the characteristics of Sherlock Holmes in later novels.
I suspect the same would apply to Wile E. Coyote if this film went into the public domain, people could use the character as long as it's the version of the character from this movie and not the version from the '60s cartoons.
There was a weird situation with the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" where the copyright to the movie lapsed into the public domain due to someone forgetting to renew it (when that was a thing), but the story, and characters were still protected. It was basically decided that the still frames were public domain, but since they became story in movie form, not just anyone could legally sell copies of the movie.
I think that only applies if you can make an argument that the two characters are distinct. Your Mickey/Steamboat Willie example is good because they are distinct (slightly different looks, and different names). Another good example is Sherlock Holmes. There was a big lawsuit where the current rights holders tried to argue that the later works are still under copyright just because Sherlock has emotions, and he didn't in the earlier stories. I don't remember how the suit turned out though.
No, just that one piece. Really, maybe there could be a second class of Public Domain where it free to share, but nobody can charge for a showing or access to.
Yeah it's a scam. They'll claim they lost all the money that went into making the movie because no one would buy it for the price they wanted. If they'd sold it for the highest offer, they'd have lost less.
How is that any different than burning down my own building and claiming it as a loss in my taxes?
No, you put your building up for sale at an absurd amount, then when nobody is willing to pay you what you want for it, then you burn it down!
Totally different and completely sane.
How do you differentiate between "Scam" movies and movies that fall apart for legitimate reasons?
There's a great documentary on exactly this called The Producers.
But they could still take the tax write off if it doesn't sell, and they miss the chance it might
This feels like money laundering or something to me
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
It's not JUST money laundering. It's also monopolistic practices, vertical and horizontal integration, regular-old fraud, and a healthy sprinkle of antilabor activities. The entire industry is wretched.
My first thought was anti-labor.
governments exist (in part) to regulate corporations, in order to stop them from doing things that are deleterious or destructive to the public good and to individuals who work for them. They have the means and motive to step in, whether declaring certain kinds of waste dumping to be illegal, trying to prevent private companies from bribing or otherwise influencing public officials
Unfortunately they don't actually do these things in real life
Do you haveam an example?
I've only known about governments that exist to monopolize violence against people who try to harm corporations' profits
do you mean just in the US? Or anywhere? The are SO many. More in the past than today. Europe just stopped Apple from using proprietary chargers.
In the US, any merger denial or monopoly breakup.
Union protections
FMLA
Any FDA chemicals restrictions
Clean Waters Act or any number of land use regulations
Basically anything an attorney general does
Book price fixing recently dismantled
Rent control
Bread crumbs to appease the plebeians to prevent a revolution. Zoom out. The government is there to protect corporate interests
Toxic cynicism isn't super healthy. Research some members of Congress to find the ones who are in it for the good of people. My senators from Oregon seem to really want to help. I'm a huge AOC fan
But I get it. Especially in election years, and especially in US since citizens United we see little prizes that maybe could have come sooner
Anytime FDA protects beef or milk interests, sure.
Some Supreme Court members are in it for the cash.
There's tons of corruption, but the examples above were legitimate.
It's also really hard to tell what your own members would do if they had full control of their chamber
We need the artists to start pushing back against this with civil disobedience (or whatever the commercial equivalent might be).
Extract a high quality copy of the final film and set it afloat on the high seas. Best of a bag situation - companies still get the write off and the audience gets the movie.
I would absolutely love it to leak and let the IRS get a hold of it
Welp, I just learned they cancelled Our Flag Means Death from this article =/
And I learned from your comment :'(
Also this tax write off thing makes things unavailable to be used again, I remember seeing a video explaining that Megas XLR can't be updated or put up on streamings because CN used it as tax write off. It's where culture is gunned down, this needs to stop ASAP.
So THAT'S why I can never find that show (legally)
THEY DID WHAT WITH MEGAS XLR?! 😭
Bro that show was huge for me. Back when we didn't have anything else on our TV, I would watch it with my buddies at their place.
The biggest reform I want to see to copyright is a use-it-or-loose-it provision. Either you make the work available under "reasonable" terms, or you loose the copyright protection. Preferably this should be combined with a requirement of all copyrighted works past a certain size to be registered with the library of Congress.
This would still allow them to double the price, and move streaming from Netflix to their crappy homebrew streaming service. The idea is just that if you aren't selling it at all, you clearly don't need copyright protections to save you from others undercutting you. This would also solve the abandonware problem; where it is simply not clear who has the rights in the first place.
My second wish would be a mandatory licensing scheme; similar to what we have for music (although updated for the internet age)
Didn't Warner's tax write-off campaign have something to do with a heath insurance fund for animators that they were trying to starve of revenue? I seem to remember something about how it wasn't about the tax savings, but preventing a certain group from receiving residuals they were contractually required to fund if projects they worked on made money. I just can't remember where I heard that.... probably from some youtube video talking about infinity train.
I have no idea why they explain this away with "it's for the tax write off". One of us isn't understanding the tax system. I don't think there's any tax rule where you scrap something of value, and end up with more money at the end of it than if you hadn't. Even if it made literally no money, and nobody watched it, and nobody subbed to Max to see it, you just wouldn't have to pay any tax on the money you didn't make.
Things like Batgirl supposedly "cost" $90 million, and they claimed a $20 million tax write off.
Why not a $90 million tax deduction? It sounds for all the world like they spent $20 million, realised it was garbage beyond even the rest of the DCEU, and shit-canned it before spending the other $70 million on finishing it (VFX, distribution, etc) as it was never going to make that back.
You're close to the truth at the end there. They spent $90 million on it, found out it was an absolute dog when they started test evenings, and decided to scrap it rather than pay another $50 million+ on promotion and other post-production expenses.
With a $20 million write-off on a $90 million movie, they still lost $70 million. They just didn't want to lose more.
It still sucks for the actual creators and the fans, but it's not like doing this actually makes the studios richer. It's just about not falling into the sunk-cost fallacy.
I don't see how they only lost $70 million if they spent $90 million and scrapped it though.
Spend $90m, scrap it, you lose $90m. This comes off your yearly profit that you pay tax on.
Spend $90m, stick it on Max, do literally no promotion or anything, make no money. Still lose the same $90m. Same amount comes off your yearly profit that you pay tax on.
The only thing I can think of is that it was so bad that they fear for the reputation of their company. Like it's so mind-bogglingly awful their share holders will see it and immediately sell up so they don't have to admit they own shares in the company that made it.
And I've seen Aquaman 2. They ain't fucking worried about that...
"Stick it on Max" still costs money? Royalties, hosting, closed captioning and translation, GUI requirements all are going to keep chipping dollars out of a product that they did not believe would make them money.
And, as you say, DC movies have really underwhelmed. Did anyone reasonably think that the (apparently) worst one was going to draw in new subscribers?
Damn, I love Will Forte too.
Representing the Looney Tunes in court could’ve been his opus. Fuck WB
And also fuck Fox for cancelling Last Man on Earth while we're at it.
Fuck Fox for Arrested Development cut down in it’s prime.
Scooby and Krypto Too was leaked (scrapped officially)...and that movie had far less exposure than this one. There's definitely hope for this seeing the light of day
Copyright should be a crime. Solve the problem at its root.
No, copyright exists for a very good reason. The term shouldn't have been mutated so much, but it shoukd absolutely exist.