on negativity in "fan" forums, and on (British) tax filing for small businesses

[acroyear]

Robert Fripp's Diary for Monday, 5th January 2009:

What I find most astonishing is that people act as if there were no consequences from their behaviour, no repercussions from their actions. Like, being nasty to someone & then expressing surprise that the subject of their nastiness is offended, upset, disturbed. Why be upset that a critic, reviewer, commentator, poster, fan or audient have stuck a metaphorical knife in the heart of a player?

If we assume our postings have no effect, better not to post them. If we believe that our postings & online commentary have effect, better to accept responsibility for generating those effects.

Robert Fripp's Diary for Wednesday, 7th January 2009:

David: A few thought-provoking figures. In the last ten years, the legal obligation for our small business to file accounts with Companies House has cost us exactly £213,763.62 in bookkeeping and accountancy fees. And yet, having paid all that money preparing accounts for the taxman, how much tax have we actually paid during that same ten year period? Exactly £670. Those figures bear repeating. £213,763.62 on the completely pointless and non-productive task of preparing figures, in order to pay a tax bill of just £670.

Comments

[mandrakan.livejournal.com]

On the latter point, I do wonder how much of those expenses were spent on reducing the ten-year tax bill TO 670 pounds, and from what figure, as opposed to simple compliance.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

This is DGM. They are a REALLY small company (4 employees) that don't really take in a lot of profit on the cd sales as one might think. Fripp and Singleton take out a salary for their remastering work, and Fripp (ethically) properly shares ALL residuals for an archive release with the members of the bands (like King Crimson) at the time. Of all of the downloads available so far, only 15-20 have "recouped", meaning have been purchased by enough people to make them profitable. Most of those are Fripp's solo soundscapes, which cost less to produce and mix since much is done live. The bootleg archives for King Crimson require a LOT of "necromancy", i.e., several days or weeks of David Singleton's time at the computer and mixing desk. Very few KC releases have made a profit.

In addition, I believe DGMLive is also the corporate entity sponsoring Fripp's continual negotiations and dealings with EMI, Sanctuary, BMG, Virgin, and other record and publishing company systems for a large amount of contract violations re: duration of releases for sale, downloads, failure to pay royalties, failure to report accurate sales numbers, re-licensing of material for sale in other countries. These labels all did "business as usual" to "standard practices" in spite of the explicit contracts Fripp signed which stated that King Crimson's material was not to be treated as "business as usual". But, of course, that's just "standard practice" for the labels.

Singleton's point was that the government would make more off of DGMLive, because DGMLive would be more profitable, if their tax rules were simpler for small businesses. Much more of that 213K would not be an expense, but rather a profit, and thus taxable, if the accounting requirements for such a small operation weren't so terse and micro-managed.

DGM is one of the most ethical companies out there, ever. They aren't playing tax codes against each other to dodge payment. Quite the opposite: they need some accurate accounting already to deal with the legal entities at those larger labels that have been stealing from King Crimson over the years.

http://www.dgmlive.com/about.htm

"The fifth aim of DGM is to be a model of ethical business in an industry founded on exploitation, oiled by deceit, riven with theft and fueled by greed."