(1) Movie theatres have to pay for rights to show films. Make them pay a 100% premium on whatever they’re paying for rights, as a tax.
(2) Streaming services and distribution companies usually have to pay production companies to make things. Charge a 100% tax if the production was foreign.
(3) If a company serves as both production and distribution (eg: Netflix), (2) still usually applies as they will have foreign business units in other countries and money moves around to pay for the production.
(4) If domestic companies shoot films on foreign locations, put a 100% tax on all costs incurred going to a domestic location to shoot.
Effect: More people bootleg foreign content and mostly this reduces the quality of Hollywood content for lack of foreign locations, etc. Trump issues some other sort of decree on Hollywood to control content, and everyone starts goose stepping.
I’d be surprised to hear of one popular big budget movie who had every step completed in a single country…
Like, I could go thru and tell you what you didn’t think of for each bullet point, but hopefully just that one point I just made will highlight how impossible this is.
I think one important thing about this is that it doesn’t fit under normal tariff structure, so it can’t just pop up whole cloth because he feels like it. Trump’s been working entirely on executive orders using previously ceded powers, if he wants a new cinema or broadcast tax, he’d need an actual law.
Not in favour, but here’s how I’d implement:
(1) Movie theatres have to pay for rights to show films. Make them pay a 100% premium on whatever they’re paying for rights, as a tax.
(2) Streaming services and distribution companies usually have to pay production companies to make things. Charge a 100% tax if the production was foreign.
(3) If a company serves as both production and distribution (eg: Netflix), (2) still usually applies as they will have foreign business units in other countries and money moves around to pay for the production.
(4) If domestic companies shoot films on foreign locations, put a 100% tax on all costs incurred going to a domestic location to shoot.
Effect: More people bootleg foreign content and mostly this reduces the quality of Hollywood content for lack of foreign locations, etc. Trump issues some other sort of decree on Hollywood to control content, and everyone starts goose stepping.
I’d be surprised to hear of one popular big budget movie who had every step completed in a single country…
Like, I could go thru and tell you what you didn’t think of for each bullet point, but hopefully just that one point I just made will highlight how impossible this is.
I think one important thing about this is that it doesn’t fit under normal tariff structure, so it can’t just pop up whole cloth because he feels like it. Trump’s been working entirely on executive orders using previously ceded powers, if he wants a new cinema or broadcast tax, he’d need an actual law.