<
https://www.techdirt.com/2023/07/05/paramount-the-latest-to-pull-titles-from-paramount-plus-streaming-catalog-for-a-tax-cut-and-to-skimp-on-paying-residuals/>
"One of the benefits of the shift to streaming music and video was supposed to
be (and often is), convenience. As in, you’d have access to any show you’d
like, at any time, without having to go hunting and pecking through old VHS
archives. And while streaming delivered on many of its original promises, as
the sector grows and consolidates at the hands of predatory, fail-upward VC
bros, things are getting… stupid.
We’ve already documented the pointless horror of the Warner Brothers Discovery
merger, in which “acquisition for acquisition’s sake” nitwits spent billions of
dollars on numerous properties only to turn around and fire oodles of
employees, pull numerous popular programs from their streaming catalogs to
avoid paying residuals, and generally creating a worse product than when they
began.
But it’s not just happening at Warner Brothers Discovery (Max). Disney, which
generally has more money than it knows what to do with, recently stopped
hosting a slate of its content (like its recently produced and relatively
popular show
Willow) because, again, it was too cheap to pay artists’
residuals and it wanted to nab a big fat tax cut.
Same thing with CBS and Paramount owned streaming platform Paramount Plus,
which is being criticized for also pulling a long list of shows that were still
popular with consumers. Again, because it was too cheap to pay residuals and
wanted a nice tax cut:
The reason behind the removals, here and elsewhere, is a tax write-down that
streaming services can get by Thanos-snapping their own original series. Why
such a tax loophole exists for content that has been written, produced, and
platformed (even for only a short time) is something that Hollywood might
want to look into, as this increasingly popular move from streamers has
introduced a new level of instability to the industry. Getting canceled is
bad enough; now creatives have to worry that their work will disappear
forever, often without any way to access it ever again.
Often, when these decisions are explained to the public in major outlets, it’s
framed as essential, cold calculus. Rarely do outlets share the context that
these same companies see no problem paying incompetent executives comically
bloated compensation packages. Nor do they note how these companies spend
untold billions on completely pointless mergers that set vast piles of money on
fire."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
