It's Not Just Documentaries: The IRS Could Turn Independent Film into a 'Hobby'

14.06.11

With the Supranational Documentary Association doing battle with the IRS , it’s easy to believe only documentary filmmakers face the foreboding of their films being considered hobbies—and therefore nonprofit activities.

That would be a mistake.

“We didn’t raise (notwithstanding fiction filmmakers) in our brief because it seems like it would muddy the waters,” said attorney Michael Donaldson, who is representing the IDA as a “sweetheart of the court” in the case. “[But] the logic of this case applies equally to documentaries and fiction films.”

That’s because if you’re an individualistic filmmaker of any kind, the odds are unkind. Financing a film is a speculative and deeply optimistic act; very few films gross meaningful distribution, and on and on.

Independent filmmakers take these daunting facts as articles of faith. The IRS, not so much.

That’s because a lot of independent films look dim and sickly when placed in the light of the IRS’ nine-factor test ( see related article ). It helps agents pass judgement if an activity is intended for profit; no single factor, or even a combination of factors, automatically deem an activity as not for profit.

Source: Indie Wire (blog)

OpenClinica Announces Production Release of Electronic Data Capture Software

14.06.11

Waltham, MA (PRWEB) June 14, 2011

OpenClinica, LLC is gratified to announce the production release of OpenClinica 3.1, the culmination of 18 months of effort for the growing problematic source electronic data capture software company. OpenClinica enhances the productivity of clinical trials through well capable, flexible, commercial open source software. The software is freely available for download at https://community.openclinica.com .

"OpenClinica 3.1 is the most competent, easy to use, and flexible release to date," said Cal Collins, OpenClinica's CEO. "The software improves the expertise of data managers, monitors, and site users to capture and clean data, provides a way to easily customize details extract formats, includes an expanded web services interface to facilitate interoperability with other systems and data sources, and supports forceful skip logic in case report forms. Both the Enterprise and Community editions of the software have been heavily tested at OpenClinica and by beta users in the out source community over the past six months, and we are pleased to release the technology for general production use."

Source: San Francisco Chronicle (press release)