Hollywood accounting (also known as Hollywood bookkeeping) refers to the opaque accounting methods used by the film, video and television industry to budget and record profits for film projects. Expenditures can be inflated to reduce or eliminate the reported profit of the project thereby reducing the amount which the corporation must pay in royalties or other profit-sharing agreements, as these are based on the net profit.

How it works

An example is the Warner Bros. television series Babylon 5 created by J. Michael Straczynski. The series, which was profitable in each of its five seasons from 1993–1998, has garnered more than US$1 billion for Warner Bros., most recently US$500 million in DVD sales alone. But in the last profit statement given to Straczynski, Warner Bros. claimed the property was $80 million in debt. "Basically," says Straczynski, "by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits."

Some studios are playing nicely. Criterion Collection's discs don't have warnings, just their and occasionally Janus Films's logo. Same applies to Eureka's Masters of Cinema releases. Blue Underground's Zombi 2 has a 5 second FBI warning in the beginning, but to my astonishment the disc resumes playback from the previous position without prompting - the first disc I've seen that does this.

On the other end of the spectrum is Fox. Sigh.

Excellent points. But did you know that Greenpeace is opposed to fusion research? In their own words:

Fusion energy - if it would ever operate - would create a serious waste problem, would emit large amounts of radioactive material and could be used to produce materials for nuclear weapons. A whole new set of nuclear risks would thus be created.

Contrast this with Fusion.org's FAQ (or consult your physics book):

The major conclusions reached by the SEAFP team in 1995 were that fusion has very good inherent safety qualities; there are no chain reactions and no production of 'actinides'. The worst possible accident originating in a fusion power station could not breach the confinement; any releases could not approach levels at which evacuation would be considered.

The radiotoxicity of a fusion power station's waste materials decays rapidly, and they present no accumulating or long-term burden on future generations. They would not need guaranteed isolation from the environment for very long timespans. In addition to these favourable results, fusion produces no climate-changing or atmosphere-polluting emissions.

I'm linking to archived version of the FAQ, since the current version seems to be dumbed down.

For that one class, the prof was one of the best lecturers I've ever seen.

Did you thank him for the lecture, and urge him to continue in this fashion?

Whedon's Angel box exemplifies the studios' attitude towards the customers.

Season 1: Copyright warnings, Fox logo, menu. User can skip the warnings by pressing MENU.
Season 2: Copyright warnings, Fox logo, menu. User cannot skip the warnings anymore.
Season 5: YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR. Fact.co.uk:s "It' illegal to copy this dvd" blurb. Fox logo. Menu.

Consider that each season has 6 dvds, and the constant blaring becomes rather tiring. The irony is that I quickly calculated the cost of downloading and possibly burning the entire show, and decided that it was far easier to pay the full box set price. Had I known about S5's menus, I would've reconsidered.