[ale] IRS, Art, RIAA & MPAA

[Bob Toxen]

On Fri, Apr 28, 2006 at 03:46:10PM -0400, James P. Kinney III wrote:
> When an artist donates a piece of art they created to a charitable
> organization to be used for a fund raiser, the IRS will only allow the
> artist to deduct the cost of the physical materials used in that piece.
> So a painter can only write off the actual cost of the paint, canvas and
> frame. They can't write off an estimated street value of the work. Nor
> can they write off an hourly rate for their time. The IRS has denied
> they the ability to deduct the assigned value of the Intellectual
> Property used to create that work of art.
It's not the IP.  The IRS does not allow one to take a tax writeoff
for their time spent on a charity, only actual dollar costs.

> So how does BSA, RIAA, & MPAA get away with claiming damages of full
> retail value instead the cost of the bulk CD/DVD, box and label?
This is unrelated to tax deductions for charity.

If the same CD/DVD gets stolen from your home your insurance company
should reimburse you for the full amount (assuming that it was brand new).

> If anyone knows how to turn this line of though over to a law firm who
> can make use of it to either 
> A. (preferred) Smack BSA,RIAA & MPAA
> B. (not a bad thing either) Get the rules changed for donated art
Not a snowball's chance in ...

> I would be happy.
> -- 
> James P. Kinney III          \Changing the mobile computing world/
> CEO & Director of Engineering \          one Linux user         /
> Local Net Solutions,LLC        \           at a time.          /
> 770-493-8244                    \.___________________________./
> http://www.localnetsolutions.com

> GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
> <jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
> Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7

Bob Toxen
bob at verysecurelinux.com               [Please use for email to me]
http://www.verysecurelinux.com        [Network&Linux/Unix security consulting]
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   -- Bob Toxen 10/03/2002