What to charge for burning DVDs?

[Bill Heslip]

Originally Posted by Bill Davis

Just a small word of warning.

You may discover that charging only for content creation and authoring skills and expertise while transferring ONLY the rights to use the content, but retaining the physical ownership of the DVDs or other storage media upon which you distribute your work MAY have positive tax consequences.

I'm not an accountant, and this is not professional accounting nor tax advice. YMMV.

This is an interesting angle on a hotly debated issue. What do you do to retain physical ownership...something printed on the DVD or within a contract?

[Shaun Roemich]

To further add to the mystery that is taxation:
In MY jurisdiction, if my business is based on delivering DIRECTLY to a client work commissioned by them as a duplication (as opposed to producing a program and then selling the program), I'm required to collect one tax (Federal Goods and Services at 5%). If I sell a produced program to end users, I'm required to collect a second tax (Provincial Sales Tax at 7%) on ALL my services, not just retail sales.

Needless to say, I'm VERY careful to NEVER do any retail work.

Again, your mileage may vary GREATLY.

[Steve House]

Originally Posted by Chris Davis

...
It's also obvious he's not in a DVD duplication business. OfficeMax DVDs are good enough for hobby work. Burn them at 4x and they'll be fine.

Making discs as a hobby only applies as long as no third party is involved. Good enough for hobby use doesn't apply once money is changing hands. If you're preparing a product for a client and charging them for it, it doesn't matter if it's a one shot deal or your full-time job, the same standards of quality need to be maintained.