Submitted by Bswanson, Dec 24, 2006 13:53

Why can't filming-permits be subject to an online public auction, like on Ebay?

The governmental department that handles filming-permits could post an online notice when a permit-request is filed by a production company. Neighborhoods would have their own war-chests, volunteered from interested residents, to outbid production-companies, or at least so consistently raise the price of filming that they would finally choose to go elsewhere.

Neighborhoods could issue ‘bonds' for this purpose, and even speculate with them by loaning them to other neighborhoods and cities who would pay for the privilege of risking them during their own auction-fights.

In other words, subject movie-shoots to market forces. Why not? If, as their defenders claim, the filming business is essential to the local economies where the work takes place, then it follows that it would have the collective economic clout to outbid neighborhoods --- or perhaps I should use the word ‘zones', for that is how new arrivals in such areas gradually come to view their surroundings.

I've always been skeptical of the filming industry's braying and snorting about its local economic importance. Much of that importance comes about through taxpayer subsidies, which taxpayers eventually pay for. Movie-shoots actually subtract from local economies to the extent that they are given a valuable resource -- locations -- essentially for free, thus acting as a mandatory off-the-books property-tax for residents and businesses. This tax, you can be sure, is factored into local property values. The permit-process itself breeds a sort of civic corruption.

I think auctions would work just fine.

Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable.