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		<title>Independent Filmmakers and Producers Cheated: Jaman et al.</title>
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		<pubDate>Mon, 01 Sep 2008 01:19:43 +0000</pubDate>
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				<category><![CDATA[independent film]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[film festival]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[filmmakers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fraud]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[jaman]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[producers]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[“Stay Away!” - INTERNET CHEATERS EXPOSED - B-side, Filmbaby, Eztakes, Lulu and Jaman Written by Elliott Watkins Contributors Thomas Heller Jennifer Burwell Cam Harvey Princeton University, July 2008 Introduction Any independent artist, filmmaker and musician knows the challenges and hurdles of getting their content out to the public, while at the same time trying to [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=tammydes90.wordpress.com&amp;blog=4684796&amp;post=3&amp;subd=tammydes90&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>“Stay Away!”<br />
-<br />
INTERNET CHEATERS EXPOSED<br />
-<br />
B-side, Filmbaby, Eztakes, Lulu and Jaman</p>
<p>Written by<br />
Elliott Watkins</p>
<p>Contributors<br />
Thomas Heller<br />
Jennifer Burwell<br />
Cam Harvey</p>
<p>Princeton University, July 2008</p>
<p>Introduction</p>
<p>Any independent artist, filmmaker and musician knows the challenges<br />
and hurdles of getting their content out to the public, while at the<br />
same time trying to make some money, or at least break-even to cover<br />
their costs. An independent film can take anywhere from one to four<br />
(or more) years to conceive, the last task, then, is to find proper<br />
distribution. There are several websites online that (apparently) fill<br />
this need and cater to &#8221; mainly young &#8221; independent artists,<br />
filmmakers and musicians.</p>
<p>In conjunction with Princeton School of Media Studies the following is<br />
a study investigating these so-called “opportunities” on the Internet<br />
and assess the legal implications. This three-year study was conducted<br />
between the years 2005-2008 and followed the path of over 500<br />
independent artists, from over 20 countries, using several websites<br />
under investigation.</p>
<p>This abbreviated study followed the independent artists and their<br />
dealings with the Internet platforms in all aspects (communication,<br />
signing-up, legal aspects, royalty awards, marketing and sales<br />
activity). The five selected websites under scrutiny were B-side,<br />
Filmbaby, Eztakes, Lulu and Jaman. As will be seen, several of these<br />
websites are, not only failing to properly address the needs of<br />
independent content creators, but ACTIVELY deceive, manipulate,<br />
defraud and cheat these creative people.</p>
<p>B-side<br />
(<a href="http://www.bside.com/">http://www.bside.com</a>)</p>
<p>According to its own mission statement B-Side is “an entertainment<br />
technology company that captures audience opinions to discover great<br />
films and deliver them to viewers around the world.” (1) 95<br />
participants had submitted their content to B-Side, and after 20 were<br />
rejected, 75 were observed for 18 months.</p>
<p>Right from the outset the biggest problem independents faced with<br />
B-Side was exactly what they had hoped for: proper content<br />
distribution. Since B-Side admittedly discovers films through audience<br />
feedback from its community of hundreds of film festival websites, the<br />
focus, reach and outlook for independent artists is prefixed and<br />
inhibited. As Hill maintains: “Viewer tastes vary based on ethnic<br />
background, social situation and cultural conditions.” (2) This aspect<br />
provides a non-negotiable situation, since all sales and marketing are<br />
based on focus groups. B-Side’s own claim of “representing the world’s<br />
largest film focus group” (3) is highly doubtful, and no evidence<br />
could be found to back up their claim. If B-Side were to deliver films<br />
globally through their own website, why would they even need other<br />
partnerships with other distributors, including the Independent Film<br />
Channel?</p>
<p>Throughout the study period, communication with B-Side management and<br />
customer service was fair, and questions were responded to in a timely<br />
manner. The legal aspects and proposed Terms and Conditions in view of<br />
the DMCA were questionable, in particular B-Side stating in paragraph<br />
6 that:</p>
<p>If you post content or submit material you grant B-Side and its<br />
affiliates a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free,<br />
non-exclusive, sublicensable right and license to make, use, sell,<br />
sublicense, reproduce, distribute, perform, display, prepare<br />
derivative works from and otherwise exploit all such content and<br />
material as if it were the full owner thereof. Furthermore, you grant<br />
B-Side, its affiliates, and sublicensees the right to use your name<br />
and/or user name in connection with the content. You represent and<br />
warrant that all content and materials you provide shall be your<br />
original work product and will not be based on, or derived from, the<br />
proprietary information or items of a third party. You will defend and<br />
indemnify B-Side and its affiliates from any claims resulting from any<br />
content or materials you provide hereunder. (4)</p>
<p>As Kleinman and Forster have found this user agreement clearly<br />
violates a user’s right to proprietorship and any artists signing such<br />
an agreement basically “hands over all rights” (5) to the website<br />
owner, without any mention of how these rights can be retained and<br />
transferred back to the content creator.</p>
<p>As for sales activity the outlook was pretty grim and the Indy<br />
filmmakers received a limited royalty payout, which partly is due to<br />
the unresolved discrepancies as mentioned above. A filmmaker thus pays<br />
over $400 up front, and sees $35 in revenue, which after taxes leaves<br />
him/her in the negative.</p>
<p>In sum, B-Side’s own claims do not correspond with the real-life<br />
experiences of the artists being the object of this study. Any<br />
independent artist should thus strongly consider dealing with this<br />
company, and probably seek out other distribution alternatives.</p>
<p>Filmbaby<br />
(<a href="http://www.filmbaby.com/">http://www.Filmbaby.com</a>)</p>
<p>“Film Baby is a leading assistive distributor for independent<br />
filmmakers.” (6)</p>
<p>As our study concluded we continued to receive complaints by<br />
filmmakers who had signed up with Filmbaby. We were surprised at what<br />
we found, due to the site’s smooth design and appealing layout, but<br />
after closer scrutiny it became clear what this website was all about.<br />
Looking at the claim above, we are still unsure what the right name<br />
is, Filmbaby, or Film Baby (two words �&#8221; for simplicity, we shall use<br />
one word henceforth), but as Young recently discovered this ambiguity<br />
was intentional, to manipulate search engines, as Filmbaby “is among<br />
the current top internet fraudsters.” (7) In addition Filmbaby uses<br />
deception, fraud and manipulation of information to lure independent<br />
artists to sign up with them, as Ulrich notes: “if it is too good to<br />
be true, it most likely is.” (8) On this note, take the following<br />
statement from the Filmbaby website into consideration:</p>
<p>Film Baby is a dream-come-true for fans of Independent Film and those<br />
who create it. At Film Baby, we have a love for all things artful and<br />
Independent: music, media, coffee, retail, and film. We recognize and<br />
appreciate the honesty, intensity, and emotion that are born as a<br />
result of crafting a small budget film. (9)</p>
<p>Despite this claim, Filmbaby then abounds in several other claims<br />
which remain questionable, as they can not be verified, among them:<br />
“[Film Baby] provides film makers with a targeted outlet for their<br />
works, “ and using agreements with artists that “are non-exclusive,<br />
artist friendly, and in the true spirit of Independent Art Culture,”<br />
delivering “the lion&#8217;s share of revenue to the artists who create the<br />
films.” (10) According to Havercamp, Filmbaby here, blatantly mimics<br />
sensory and linguistic techniques in order to distort and manipulate<br />
(11) Furthermore, several hundred titles listed on their website are<br />
bogus! We researched for the producers, directors, cast and crew list<br />
worldwide, but could not find them. Higgins goes a step further and<br />
states: “if you have to create fake listings why not at least do a<br />
little better job.” (12)</p>
<p>As our study concluded these claims are not only faulty, but also<br />
intentionally misleading and designed to defraud and exploit<br />
independent filmmakers. Fortunately, several artists who had<br />
previously been defrauded by filed several lawsuits against Filmbaby,<br />
which then lead to the SEC and FBI to begin a comprehensive<br />
investigation, which is still underway. Unknown to the general public,<br />
to date, Filmbaby is facing several major lawsuits, including two<br />
major class action lawsuits. Several court filings against Filmbaby<br />
have already commenced, pre-filed in Los Angeles and San Diego. The<br />
cases are: Galinsky vs. Filmbaby and Johanson vs. Filmbaby (13) (14)</p>
<p>Several other cases of legal litigation against Filmbay are underway,<br />
which challenge that “Film Baby is the Film Maker&#8217;s best friend.” (15)<br />
As with the problems our surveyed independent filmmakers experienced<br />
was not only a lack of support and customer service, but also a lack<br />
of transparency when it comes to distribution and proper accounting of<br />
sales. In fact we made several purchases from Filmbaby, which were not<br />
delivered and never credited to the filmmaker’s account, artists did<br />
not receive any payment whatsoever. As they state themselves: “Don&#8217;t<br />
Let the Baby Fool You!” (16)</p>
<p>One month later, we tested Filmbaby again, and bought several DVDs<br />
from our own surveyed independent filmmakers who had signed out, and<br />
Filmbaby did not ship out our items, record the sales royalties for<br />
the filmmakers, and failed to return our money via chargeback to our<br />
credit card. In addition, the month’s best sellers and all-time best<br />
sellers did not change after a greater amount of films was ordered<br />
(and never delivered). “This is exceptional fraud, The IFCC (Internet<br />
Fraud Complaint Center, FBI website) was already investigating this,<br />
and even discloses their ongoing investigation of Filmbaby in Santa<br />
Monica Court (17)</p>
<p>Finally, Here is one of the more obvious example of Filmbaby’s<br />
malpractices, in this instance, the sale and distribution of a DVD:<br />
The film American Drug War: The Last White Hope (2007) retails on<br />
Amazon for $21.99, yet, on Filmbaby for $29.95 (18) �&#8221; Why? Not only is<br />
this abusing the content creator, who gets a minimum of 4% of every<br />
Amazon sale, but one of several examples of how Filmbaby conducts itself.</p>
<p>The logic behind this is that Filmbaby simply lists their item on<br />
their website, and if an uniformed consumer makes a purchase (85% of<br />
all smart shoppers will buy the DVD on Amazon, as it is cheaper)<br />
Filmbaby cashes in the full sale price, and then ships out via the<br />
same distributor, used for Amazon. “This malpractice not only deceives<br />
consumers, but is aimed to fully exploit and defraud the content<br />
creator. Under the guise of Being a ‘haven for independent filmmakers’<br />
Filmbaby openly commits fraud and exploits the Indy filmmaker �&#8221; this<br />
is unique and, as aforementioned, is already being investigated by the<br />
FBI.</p>
<p>Eztakes<br />
(<a href="http://www.eztakes.com/">http://www.Eztakes.com</a>)</p>
<p>Eztakes, Inc. was founded in June 2003, by executives with a long<br />
track record of starting and building highly-successful companies in<br />
diverse industries such as banking, document management and consumer<br />
e-commerce. (19)</p>
<p>This is how Eztakes describes itself in its about us page. The only<br />
problem with this claim is that it fails on two aspects; one, it<br />
cannot be verified, and two, there is no mention on how, or why an<br />
independent filmmaker would benefit from signing up with Eztakes. In<br />
addition, the year 2003 did not anticipate the rise of the torrent,<br />
which today (in 2008) lets Eztakes look rather silly as a concept or<br />
even a distribution model for either independent or mainstream<br />
content. Eztakes claims that they are leading in DRM (Digital Rights<br />
Management) but then even state themselves that “the vast majority of<br />
experts now agree that DRM does nothing to stop piracy and is harmful<br />
to both consumers and the entertainment industry.” (20)</p>
<p>In addition, the refund policy of Eztakes is also ambiguous and<br />
unclear. This not only leads to confusion of consumers, but also is<br />
also illegal as it violates standard business law. On the one hand<br />
Eztakes states: “all sales of Content are final unless otherwise<br />
specified.” (21) However, on a different page on the website it states:</p>
<p>Is there a money-back guarantee? Yes. Our CEO&#8217;s personal guarantee<br />
states that first-time Eztakes customers can get a refund for any<br />
reason that prevents them from fully enjoying the movies they get from<br />
Eztakes. If there is ever any problem with the Eztakes service that<br />
prevents a customer from enjoying a movie, Eztakes will always refund<br />
all charges. (22) (23)</p>
<p>The surveyed filmmakers who did sign up faced a multitude of<br />
challenges, first and foremost legal implications arising from the<br />
outdated and DMCA non-conforming terms of its user agreement.<br />
Deventiava follows up on this: “The DMCA was created to fully protect<br />
content creators, web sites like Eztakes.com are ambivalent towards<br />
such regulations.” (24) In fact several independent filmmakers<br />
received letters from US law firm Melveny &amp; Myers, to seize and<br />
desist, since they were apparently infringing on the copyright of<br />
others. (25) One surveyed Indy filmmakers even received a subpoena<br />
followed by a court order to pay $25, 000 to medium label, Digital<br />
Films, Inc, who was using safenet.com to monitor and assist in any<br />
infringing copyright violation. Eztakes quickly handed over all<br />
contact information to the authorities and even faxed a letter to the<br />
SEC and FBI insisting on fully assisting investigators against the<br />
independent filmmaker. This was possible since Eztakes used several<br />
legal loopholes in order to avoid its own prosecution, placing the<br />
onus on the independent producer, while simultaneously blurring<br />
additional international legal distinctions and mandatory statutes.</p>
<p>Closely tailing Filmbaby, Eztakes was overall among the worst in<br />
dealing with all issues and questions of our surveyed independent<br />
filmmakers. The so-called “digitally-protected” content, ended up on<br />
torrent websites within only 48 hours after it was purchased from<br />
Eztakes. As Berger states:</p>
<p>In November 2006 Troma released a ‘Buy and Burn’ DVD at Eztakes.com<br />
called Debbie Rochon Confidential, featuring never before seen footage<br />
from Debbie&#8217;s years working with Troma. Two of Debbie&#8217;s most recent<br />
features, The Deepening and Vampyre Tales (appearing in both with<br />
genre actor Jim O&#8217;Rear) have just been made available on DVD. It was<br />
acquired from Eztakes, ripped and then distributed on p2p and torrent<br />
websites within 12 hours. (26)</p>
<p>To further make the point Stafford insists: “DRM and digital<br />
watermarking of any content is futile since digital data can always be<br />
down converted to analog, and then re-cloned back to quasi digital<br />
standards.” (27) It is thus simply questionable why any company let<br />
alone eztazkes would claim there “leading-edge” on digital copyright<br />
protection, it obviously is just a marketing ploy to get users to sign<br />
up with them.</p>
<p>Lulu<br />
(<a href="http://www.lulu.com/">http://www.lulu.com</a>)</p>
<p>Based on our study, if we were to apply a label to Lulu it would<br />
inevitably consist of the term ‘vanity press.’ Lulu is a printing<br />
company with its headquarters at Morrisville, North Carolina. In<br />
addition to printing it also offers online order fulfillment. The<br />
brand name is derived from the concept of a lulu as an old-fashioned<br />
term for a remarkable person, object, or idea. CEO Bob Young insists<br />
that the author retains copyright, and in theory that is true.<br />
However, as our survey revealed, in practice this is untrue, since the<br />
independent artist has to sign an agreement, which deprives him/her of<br />
their copyright.</p>
<p>Another problem our surveyed artists had were “optional services<br />
including ISBN assignment and distribution” (28) since returns are not<br />
accepted, which severely limits distribution opportunities. According<br />
to Goldman “the author and content creator using Lulu is forced to<br />
select from a series of options corresponding to the media type &#8211; for<br />
example, an author uploading a novel would select binding, layout<br />
style and cover art.” (29) The problem with this is that here we have<br />
a typical example of a vanity press which creates unnecessary costs<br />
for the independent artist as part of mandatory bulk overhead costs.</p>
<p>The sales reporting tools where accurate, however, the sales volume<br />
was lesser than expected. A price is determined based on factors such<br />
as the page count, type of format, and the user&#8217;s choice of margin.<br />
From the margin set on each copy, 65% goes to the author and 35% to<br />
Lulu, however as Lovell explains: “Lulu now claims a commission if the<br />
work is offered free of royalty and copyright does not remain with the<br />
author, regardless of the distribution model.” (30)</p>
<p>In September 2007, Lulu came under criticism for changing the terms of<br />
its global distribution package and incurring a price rise of around<br />
70% on all books sold in the United Kingdom. (31) Some authors see<br />
this as effectively pricing them out of the UK marketplace. On<br />
September 19, 2007, Lulu authors based outside of the United States<br />
received documentation informing them they would be subject to a 30%<br />
tax on their royalties gained through sales in the United States.<br />
Regarding this issue, the CEO of Lulu, Bob Young, has stated, &#8220;You are<br />
quite right, we messed up, badly.&#8221; (32) Lulu states that it has<br />
attempted to mitigate the problem, that it has no choice but to follow<br />
US tax laws, and that part of the issue has been currency exchange<br />
rates. In addition Lulu, unlike most publishers, does not accept<br />
returns of unsold books from bookstores. These facts may make it<br />
difficult for independent content creators to have their content<br />
carried in web stores, though they&#8217;re not an issue for online sites<br />
like Amazon.com</p>
<p>Finally, the imposition and need by Lulu for an ISBN and UPC number is<br />
not only contradictory as general business practice but forces an<br />
independent content creator, be it a filmmaker, author or artists to<br />
additional unnecessary and unwelcome costs. Despite being treated with<br />
respect and having good customer service with fast responses, overall,<br />
it is simply not viable for an Indy content creator to sign up with<br />
Lulu, due to the high overhead costs and being unfairly billed for<br />
every sales transaction. Today, according to Douglas this practice is<br />
also illegal, since “vanity presses fall under very specific<br />
conditions and must adhere to standardized guidelines.” (33) As seen,<br />
Lulu is nothing more than a vanity press par excellence, and any<br />
independent artists should look elsewhere.</p>
<p>Jaman<br />
(<a href="http://www.jaman.com/">http://www.jaman.com</a>)</p>
<p>Jaman operates under the website name jaman.com. Under the seemingly<br />
friendly and nicely designed website our research discovered numerous<br />
problems (some, very serious) associated with this company. In Jaman’s<br />
self-described ‘About Us” page there are several unsubstantiated<br />
claims, such as being “the world&#8217;s largest online libraries of feature<br />
films and documentaries,” (34) and “providing filmmakers and studios a<br />
secure way to market films.” (34 The latter is nothing more than an<br />
obvious slogan, since there is no evidence too back up this claim.<br />
Such statements should prompt anyone to be skeptical, especially when<br />
it comes to film distribution and digital rights management.</p>
<p>Our testers then used the application form and submitted an<br />
independent film for submission to Jaman.com. Their own initial claim<br />
proved to be immediately troublesome:</p>
<p>If you are an independent filmmaker and would like to distribute your<br />
film through the Jaman service, please fill out the form below and we<br />
will contact you as soon as possible. (34)</p>
<p>It took two (!) months to get a response, and after another three<br />
weeks we received an information package, which we completed and sent<br />
back to Jaman. Our legal team had already highlighted numerous legal<br />
problems in Jaman’s Terms of Service and in the agreement filmmaker’s<br />
are supposed to sign when submitting a film. As Berger points out, any<br />
internet company that offers internet distribution of independent<br />
intellectual property must offer “a maximum of protection of a<br />
producer’s Intellectual property rights,” (35) which Jaman does not<br />
do: “Jaman does not guarantee any confidentiality with respect to any<br />
submission.” (34) What is more, is that essentially any filmmaker<br />
submitting her or his film signs over all rights to Jaman. Furthermore:</p>
<p>Jaman MAKES NO WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE ACCURACY OR<br />
COMPLETENESS OF THIS SITE&#8217;S CONTENT OR THE CONTENT OF ANY SITES LINKED<br />
TO THIS SITE AND ASSUMES NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY (I)<br />
ERRORS, MISTAKES, OR INACCURACIES OF CONTENT. (34)</p>
<p>What follows here is that Jaman can essentially do anything they want<br />
with content submitted by a producer and filmmaker, AND can even make<br />
misrepresentations, changes and alterations to a film, if chosen to do<br />
so. There is nothing in the terms of use to protect an independent<br />
filmmaker or producer, which is not only questionable, but also even<br />
unlawful by today’s intellectual property laws.</p>
<p>Apart from these legal pitfalls, several exhaustive price comparisons<br />
were made between films listed on Jaman and Amazon. It turned out that<br />
over 80% of all titles on Jaman are at minimum $2-3 MORE EXPENSIVE<br />
than Amazon. In addition, the shipping rates for DVDs were overpriced,<br />
and the net sale price of a digital download is also higher than<br />
Amazon. What is more is that independent producers, get even less of<br />
all net profit than if they were to self-distribute their products, on<br />
Amazon, for example. Pascale notes: “The profit margin for independent<br />
producers selling on Jaman is a maximum of 15% of all net sales; this<br />
is terrible. And, what is worse, a producer has no way of controlling<br />
how many units are sold, since Jaman, does not offer transparent<br />
accounting tools.” (36)</p>
<p>Next to these issues, we found out, how Jaman has gone about<br />
falsifying and manipulating information on the Internet. Jaman hires<br />
people to manipulate blogs and chat rooms to maintain that despite<br />
obvious share losses and layoffs, all is well. Jaman management uses<br />
bribes to pay off operators of blogs, news feeds and websites to gain<br />
control over general public opinion. The FBI is currently<br />
investigating a case initiated by the California DA’s office against<br />
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who received “donations” from an<br />
offshore account linked to Jaman. Evidently Jaman donated $1.3 million<br />
to the Wikimedia Foundation, the operator of Wikipedia, but “forgot”<br />
to file taxes on it in 2007, as publicly accessible court filings<br />
reveal (37). Jaman’s Wikipedia entry reads:</p>
<p>Jaman is a company that offers view on demand of media on the<br />
Internet. It allows viewing on a variety of platforms via a<br />
downloadable platform. It specializes in foreign films. [n]. It also<br />
offers movies and TV shows through TiVo.[n] It was founded by Gaurav<br />
Dhillon, who was the Chief Executive Officer of Informatica (NASDAQ:<br />
INFA), a Silicon Valley company that he co-founded in 1992. (38)</p>
<p>Any such entry on Wikipedia, even as ‘stub” would be immediately<br />
deleted by Wikipedia, since: “Criteria for speedy deletion specify the<br />
limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media<br />
without discussion,” (38) which Wikipedia usually does. Therefore, any<br />
other such listing by an individual , company or corporation would<br />
have been deleted by Wikipedia, under their own so-called &#8220;speedy<br />
deletion policy.&#8221; As Anderson has previously pointed out “the<br />
Wikipedia philosophy is not ‘free knowledge for free minds,’ but &#8220;free<br />
listings for big donations.&#8221; (39) The Wikipedia entry on Jaman, must<br />
thus be seen as biased which would clarify why such an entry would<br />
exist in the first place. However, as seen, even Wikipedia and its<br />
founder Jimmy Wales are not immune from severe fraud allegations and<br />
current federal investigations.</p>
<p>Astonishingly, this is not where dubious practices at Jaman, end. In<br />
fact, several requests to the SEC and other authorities revealed that<br />
Jaman CEO and founder, Gaurav Dhillon, misrepresented financial<br />
figures while heading the Informatica Corporation. Gilson states that<br />
“the reported billion dollars in cumulative revenue during his tenure,<br />
was actually less than $365 million.” (40) The SEC is currently<br />
investigating this discrepancy, and has officially released documents<br />
about Dhillon, which reveal he had been fired from Unisys for<br />
fraudulent conduct. Curiously his business partner and Jaman<br />
associate, Riyad Shahjahan, was officially cited as being directly<br />
responsible in the most recent financial demise of Citigroup Global<br />
Markets. Both Dhillon and Shahjahan have been linked to previous fraud<br />
charges and four convictions against Ed Pressman, another shady figure<br />
in prominent corporate schemes and scandals, such as the “57-million<br />
lawsuit filed by Intel against Pressman Film Corporation, is currently<br />
facing civil and legal litigation in the United States” (41) What is<br />
more is that in the late 1980s, Gaurav Dhillon, was previously<br />
involved in fraud schemes and has a CRIMINAL RECORD according to the<br />
Delaware state crime registry: “Dhillon is banned for life in<br />
practicing business in the state of Delaware,” according to Grundfest<br />
and Klausner (42)</p>
<p>In sum, independent producers and filmmakers, submitting their<br />
content to Jaman will lose all their rights, receive only marginal<br />
profits and will be bound by a questionable and (in parts) illegal<br />
user agreement. Also, not only are most products on Jaman.com<br />
overpriced and often more expensive than on Amazon, are internet blogs<br />
manipulated and websites such as Wikipedia ‘bribed’ for favorable<br />
inclusion, but the people and key executives operating the website,<br />
Dhillon, is a convicted criminal and fully documented online<br />
fraudster. This also holds true of other company executives, namely<br />
Shahjahan and Pressman. It will be up to US authorities to follow up<br />
current investigations and charges against Jaman, and finally shutting<br />
their company and website down.</p>
<p>Summary</p>
<p>Of all surveyed websites, Filmbaby was by far the worst, due to the<br />
sum of all contributing factors; including the lack of interest in its<br />
customers, absence of customer service, vanity charges, its fees and<br />
points system, and especially the fraud and legal implications of its<br />
mistreating content creators. This was true for all sampled websites,<br />
excluding b-side. As such, several independent filmmakers and<br />
producers had reported, both Eztakes and Filmbaby ignored all requests<br />
to remove their content and films from its website, once it became<br />
clear Filmbaby was violating the DMCA provisions, insisting on its<br />
fraudulent TOS and selling the filmmaker’s movies on Amazon against<br />
the filmmaker’s will, while making and keeping all profits. Of all<br />
examined websites, Jaman.com was so obiously fraudulent that all<br />
independent producers and filmmakers should stay away.</p>
<p>Apart from nice design and layout, the websites under scrutiny showed<br />
a complete lack of ethics towards independent content creators and<br />
artists. Also, the fact that orders are not shipped out, the absence<br />
of shop and invoicing control and lastly the avoidance with<br />
circumvention of Internet law and proper business practices, lead to<br />
the notion of caution on the side of independent musicians and<br />
artists, BEFORE signing any agreements with these internet platforms.<br />
Thus, any independent content creator is better off selling their<br />
products in their own shop, and via googlebase with google checkout.<br />
Finally, the occurrence of lawsuits filed against several of these<br />
websites speaks for itself.</p>
<p>NOTE:</p>
<p>If you have been a victim of fraud by the aforementioned websites you<br />
can contact anyone of the following law firms for FREE HELP and<br />
assistance, and join several class-action lawsuits against the<br />
fraudulent companies:</p>
<p>Baker &amp; McKenzie<br />
International Executive Offices<br />
One Prudential Plaza, Suite 2500<br />
Chicago, Illinois 60601, USA<br />
Tel: +1 312 861 8800<br />
Fax: +1 312 861 8823<br />
<a href="http://www.bakernet.com/">http://www.bakernet.com</a></p>
<p>Kirkpatrick &amp; Lockhart Nicholson Graham<br />
Boston State Street Financial Center, One Lincoln Street<br />
Boston, Massachusetts 02111-2950, USA<br />
+1.617.261.3100 Fax +1.617.261.3175<br />
<a href="http://www.klgates.com/">http://www.klgates.com</a></p>
<p>Weil, Gotshal &amp; Manges<br />
767 Fifth Avenue<br />
New York, NY 10153, USA<br />
Tel: +1 212 310 8000<br />
Fax: +1 212 310 8007<br />
<a href="http://www.weil.com/">http://www.weil.com</a></p>
<p>Works Cited</p>
<p>(1) <a href="http://www.bside.com/about">http://www.bside.com/about</a><br />
(2) Hill, David. Finding the Right Way. Addison-Wesley, 2007.<br />
(3) <a href="http://www.bside.com/about">http://www.bside.com/about</a><br />
(4) <a href="http://www.bside.com/about/tsandcs/">http://www.bside.com/about/tsandcs/</a><br />
(5) Kleinman, Stuart and Forster, Gerhardt. Moving Out West &#8221; The<br />
Downside of B-Side in Virginia Legal Journal, February 2008.<br />
(6) <a href="http://www.filmbaby.com/">http://www.filmbaby.com/</a><br />
(7) Young, Jonas R. Internet Fraud Now and Then. Virgo Publishing, 2008.<br />
(8) Ulrich, Frederick. Smaller is Better? In New York Journal,<br />
January, 2008.<br />
(9) <a href="http://www.filmbaby.com/">http://www.filmbaby.com/</a><br />
(10) From the Filmbaby website: <a href="http://www.filmbaby.com/">http://www.filmbaby.com</a><br />
(11) Havercamp, Eugene. Instrumentalising Words. Oxford: OUP, 2007.<br />
(12) Higgins James M. Innovate Evaporate. Management Publishing, 2008.<br />
(13) Superior Court of California, San Diego County, court filing #<br />
C-08-1902<br />
(14) District Court of California, L. A. County, court filing # C-08-2106<br />
(15) <a href="http://www.filmbaby.com/about_us">http://www.filmbaby.com/about_us</a><br />
(16) <a href="http://www.filmbaby.com/about_us">http://www.filmbaby.com/about_us</a><br />
(17) Morrison &amp; Foerster, Santa Monica court filing # A-08-553<br />
(18) See screenshots (Appendix A)<br />
(19) <a href="http://www.eztakes.com/store/info/profile.jsp">http://www.eztakes.com/store/info/profile.jsp</a><br />
(20) <a href="http://www.eztakes.com/">http://www.eztakes.com/</a><br />
(21) <a href="http://www.eztakes.com/store/info/terms.jsp">http://www.Eztakes.com/store/info/terms.jsp</a><br />
(22) <a href="http://www.eztakes.com/store/popups/popup_faqs.jsp">http://www.Eztakes.com/store/popups/popup_faqs.jsp</a><br />
(23) See screenshots (Appendix B)<br />
(24) Deventiava, Horaz. “Field Straight Open” in Washington Post, 6<br />
May 2008.<br />
(25) Melveny &amp; Myers. Press Release, May 24, 2008.<br />
(26) Berger, Thomas C. Untitled Study. Stanford, 2008.<br />
(27) Stafford, William. “Life on the Fast-Lane” in Chicago Sun-Times,<br />
May 4, 2008.<br />
(28) <a href="http://www.lulu.com/">http://www.lulu.com</a><br />
(29) Goldman, Hannah. Vanity Presses: Yesterday and Today. New York:<br />
Ballantine, 2008.<br />
(30) Lovell, Jeremy (December 21, 2007). &#8220;A Lulu of an idea&#8221;, Boston Star.<br />
(31) Clee, Nicholas (August 13, 2007). &#8220;The deals, steals and snubs<br />
from the world of books &#8211; Hot type&#8221;, The Times.<br />
(32) Young, Bob (December 7, 2008). &#8220;Save face with a pet project&#8221;,<br />
Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved on 2008-04-20.<br />
(33) Douglas, Warren. Trade, E-Commerce on the Internet. Berkeley, 2007.<br />
(34) <a href="http://www.jaman.com/">http://www.jaman.com/</a><br />
(35) Berger, Briget. Culture of Entrepreneurship. ICS Press, 2007.<br />
(36) Pascale, Richard G. The Art of Digital Distribution. Warner, 2008.<br />
(37) Superior Court of California, County of San Diego, court filing #<br />
M-08-2716<br />
(38) <a href="http://www.wikipedia.com/">http://www.wikipedia.com</a><br />
(39) Anderson, Elizabeth P. Second to None. Irwin, 2007.<br />
(40) Gilson, Ronald J. The Legal Journal, Stanford, 2008.<br />
(41) Morrison &amp; Foerster, Chicago court filing # B-08-742<br />
(42) Grundfest, Joseph A. and Klausner, Michael. Stanford Business<br />
Review, 06/2008.</p>
<p>Additional Reading</p>
<p>(1) Callahan, Dan. Issues on Ethics. Health Policy Review, January 2007.<br />
(2) Bankman, Joseph. Corporate Governance and Practice, New York, 2008.<br />
(3) Daines, Robert. Future Prospects of Legality, Duke: Duke<br />
University Press, 2007.<br />
(4) Becker, Anne. Professor of Medical Anthropology, Clinical Study<br />
IV, B03308.<br />
(5) Gilligan, Laura. Two Years After &#8221; The Filmbaby Exodus, Dallas, 2008.<br />
(6) Luke Paterson. “Making the Internet a Better Place” in Newsweek,<br />
June 2006.<br />
(7) Weizman, Isaac. Lawful Procedures in the 21st Century. NYU Press,<br />
2005.<br />
(8) Weizman, Isaac. Lawful Procedures in the 21st Century. NYU Press,<br />
2005.<br />
(9) Young, Tim. “Keeping it Safe “ in MIT Internet Security Anthology,<br />
July 2008.<br />
(10) Gould, Martin. Faster and Better. Chicago: Chicago Free Press, 2007.<br />
(11) Torman, Bryan. “Banking Today” in Forbes Magazine 1/2008.<br />
(12) Podinsky, Chris. “Powerselling on ” in New York Times, August 12,<br />
2007.<br />
(13) Wallace, Henry. The Countdown Divers. Edinburgh: Edinburgh New<br />
Press, 2008.<br />
(14) Windsor, Evan. Pressure, Visibilty &amp; Credibility. Boston: MIT<br />
Press, 2008.<br />
(15) Pralait, George. “On-demand Yesterday, Today” in Sun-Times, March<br />
03/2008.<br />
(16) Bronfman, Kate. The Cultures of Work Organizations.<br />
Prentice-Hall, 2008.<br />
(17) Quinn, Tomas. “Racing with Low Speed” in Business Gazette 04/08.<br />
(18) Allan M. Kennedy. Corporate Culture. Addison-Wesley, 2006.<br />
(19) Schein, Edgar H. Culture with Leadership, 2d ed. Jossey-Bass, 1999.<br />
(20) Bryers, David. “Sales Inhibitors from Beyond” in Wall Street<br />
Journal, 04/08.<br />
(21) Johnson, William. Global Business Reader. New York: Praeger<br />
Books, 2006.<br />
(22) Berger, Briget. Culture of Entrepreneurship. ICS Press, 2007.<br />
(23) Pascale, Richard G. True Financial Outlook. Bantam, 2008.</p>
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