Warning about Media Partners/Reelbrokers

clive

clive

Hi everyone

I've just had an interesting experience. I received an email from a company called Media Partners who understood I had a screenplay for sale and were looking for new screenwriters to represent (As I've got my script on Inktip and have sent out querys via Script Pimp this wasn't unexpected). Anyhow, they asked for some basic information, logline, synopsis, my company name, address, phone number and email which I sent to them; as you do when a seemingly legimate business contacts you.

The next day I get three emails: one from Media Partners saying that they are reviewing my material and two from a website called reelbrokers http://www.reelbrokers.com who thanked me for becoming member and provide me with my login name and password.

So, I go and have a look and discover that not only have they given me free membership, they've also uploaded my logline, synopsis and all my personal contact details into their site. This is an open site where anyone can read it :angry:

OK, it only took me a few minutes to delete the information and a few more to send an email to both organisations explaining how many lawyers would be pounding on their doors if they reposted my information, but even so.

Anyhow, as they seem to be fairly new to this my guess is that they'll be pulling this stunt more often and I just wanted to get the word out. I'm not a member on any other film-maker forums, but if anyone is, feel free to pass on this warning.
 
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Looks like that's how their getting memberships for their site, sleazy.
 
Funny I came across them another way and found them to be equally devious. I joined under a assumed name to see what their gig was. I created a false and rather crappy film log line and 10 liner and within hours had a offer of fianance. Funny though... it would have cost me near to $10k to get the film financed. (the budget was around £60k/$100k USD).

SCAM? What SCAM?
 
That's dreadful. I don't know about you, I'm sick and tired of parasites who are only interested in leeching money out of hard working indie-film-makers. :huh:

Thanks for going ninja on them for us - useful stuff came out of it.
 
Ha! any time. To be honest people have tried to take a ride on me so often I started to feel like a fucking fair ground donkey!

These c**ts are just so obvious. If I find out any more...
 
An easy way to start sorting the bull from the real thing: If you get an email from a person with a first and last name that you can google and bring up something, you're close to the realm of reality. If you get an email from a "company", you can pretty much discard it like so much junk mail. And anyone who offers you anything without having so much as a conversation with you about it first is in no way a professional or capable of following through.

As you approach a possible deal, the vortex of possibilities out there rapidly diminishes to the few that can really happen. Kind of like quantum mechanics, we go from infinite choices to one reality every second we exist. Sorry about veering off into metaphysics, but funny how it applies.
 
davidchecker said:
An easy way to start sorting the bull from the real thing: If you get an email from a person with a first and last name that you can google and bring up something, you're close to the realm of reality. If you get an email from a "company", you can pretty much discard it like so much junk mail. And anyone who offers you anything without having so much as a conversation with you about it first is in no way a professional or capable of following through.

As you approach a possible deal, the vortex of possibilities out there rapidly diminishes to the few that can really happen. Kind of like quantum mechanics, we go from infinite choices to one reality every second we exist. Sorry about veering off into metaphysics, but funny how it applies.
Click to expand...

(Kenau Kill & Ted voice) Woooow.... dude. That was like totally... like deap! Dude
 
Maybe someone could start a blacklist of shonky operators.
Click to expand...

Shonky ... that's such a good word. Maybe we could start an award for scam merchants who prey on indie film-makers ... The Shonky's.

And the winner of this year's Shonky for worst newcomer is .... (tearing of shit brown envelope) .. Reelbrokers.

Actually I should have guessed ... any company with the name "media" in their title is just trying too hard. It's a bit like the golden rule in advertising - never to get your ads from any company that uses "Creative" in their company name; because if they really were they would have come up with something better. :lol:
 
blacklist of "shonky operators" ? I think it's called the "Hollywood Creative Directory", and can be had at Amazon. com for about $60. Hahahaha, actually, I think advising people on scams like "reading fees" and doing extensive free re-writes, would go a long way towards keeping our side from getting shafted. You want to be awfully sure of the facts before "blacklisting" a company, and I wouldn't go that far if there's only anectdotal evidence. Of course, listing them as "shonky" would at least put people on their guard, if the shonky-looking website doesn't.
 
Actually, it's a great idea for a web site or a yahoo mailing group. People nominate web parasites and once a month one of them is awarded with a Shonky.

I think it's possible to buy elephant shit ... so, once a month the website mails out a varnished elephant turd to the scam meister of choice.

To fund the whole operation you could merchandise T-shirts via Cafe Express
 
I can't provide you with a copy if the letter but the jist of a letter like that goes a bit like this ...

It has come to my attention that you have taken intellectual property provided to you in confidence and have published it on the internet.

I have forwarded the details of this to my lawyer and have instructed her that if the material is not removed immediately that she is to take whatever steps are neccesary in order to protect what is copyrighted material owned in it's entirity by my production company.

The key elements are the words .... "in confidence" ... "intellectual property" ... "copyrighted" and "owned by my company" This is because there is legal precident that requires companies to respect communications sent in confidence to them to keep those communications private ... it's a terminal error to violate that particular kind of agreement. The rest is fairly self evident, providing you understand what can and can't be copyrighted.

Copyright can't be applied to an idea, only to the specific words of a document. Now these guys probably thought that a synopsis isn't copyrighted, but it is if you include the synopsis in with your script when you register it at the library of congress. It's then covered in the same way as any other part of the document.

In terms of getting the job done it's always better to stress that the IP is the property of your company rather than you as an individual, because they then have no way of guaging how deep your pockets are. Law suits are like a huge game of chicken in which people try to figure out who has the most ot loose. Even if you have a cast iron case on your side you still might not proceed because the truth is that there have been next to no cases ever won where copyright has been infringed. Now, if they're a company and you're an indivdual that means that they gamble that no indivdual is goinng to take their case to court ... too expensive. However, if the letter is from a production company, well some of those places have more lawyers than producers. The weight of the gamble swings in your favour.

The other thing that I tend to do is use the personal pro-noun she and her when talking about the lawyer ... that's because most people are still pretty sexist ... if they see the personal pro-noun "she" they assume that you must have personal lawyer on retainer and that you're on first name terms with her ... that's uber scary. If you use the male gender pro-nouns it doesn't have the same effect.
 
Clive, I believe there's only a case if you couldn't remove your information from the site, or if they were in a position to somehow profit from posting it (even something as insignificant as showing advertising next to your synopsis). But since you have proactively solved the problem, you've effectively taken this shonky operator off the hook. Of course, putting the fear of god into them isn't a bad thing to do. Or the fear of Clive.

I can't begin to imagine the amount of unprotected (unregistered) material floating around in the production ether, and I'm sure a majority isn't worth the photons to look at. And shonky operators aren't going to be able to do much with anyone's stuff anyway- after all, if they had the money, they'd be legitimately making movies and you'd have nothing to worry about.

As for a shonky operator list and monthly awards, how about just buckling down and doing good work? I have hard enough time finding time and energy for that, between renovating my house and getting married. Finger pointing is a huge time waster- if you have a worthwhile case, make it or make other plans, the end. FADE OUT
 
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