As a distributor you don't care about that anymore than HBO cares that Mike Tyson is all over Youtube. The money isn't in rarity of views. The money is in being the sole owner of distribution rights. With distribution rights all those Youtube videos pay you. All those Amazon upload pay you. You don't even have to police it, bots take care of that. I think I just misunderstood or misread you, but either way, what you're talking about is illegal. What I am talking about is the legal rights. Mike Tyson is all over the WBVA, and youtube. Mike Tyson's film distribution rights still hold weight, and if you tried to acquire them from HBO you'd spend a pretty penny. Much more than a collector spends to have copies, much more than piracy absorbs. Actually, ya know I didn't mean to try to talk you into doing anything. I thought you were interested in selling the lot and figured I should tell you what I intended on doing with them while taking you up of the offer to sell. Give you the opportunity ya know? If you're not interested in who has distribution rights, and/or you're not interested selling there's no reason for us to speak. I didn't intend on trying to convince you of anything, I intended on talking to you about selling to me or helping you figure out who has distribution rights so that you can be the distributor if you like. If neither interest you we don't have to argue....that's pointless. I do feel obligated to tell you I am not unfamiliar with distribution rights or television. I've been on Showtime, Channel 4, Discovery, TLC, Netflix, and my work is on CBS's CSI. I'm a prosthetics inventor who has done some hollywood props. If you're assuming and have no experience with the industry maybe you ought to listen a little more than you tell.
Klompton did you get the Niccolino Locche fights from Archivo-Di Film/DiChiara? I remember a couple of years ago sending an email to to them enquiring about full Locche fights and they replied by saying that they had some but it would cost(dont remember the amount to transfer the films for 8 mm or 16 mm i dont remember exactly) but at the time i didnt had the money so i didnt follow through with it. Recently i send another mail to them and this time they said that they dont have any fight of Locche and that they dont know anyone who has it,the way they responded made it look like i was asking for anything illegal FFS. Anyway would you consider selling any Locche fight or is just something you're not interested in?
You are talking apples and oranges. You say you were talking about me selling the lot AND distributing them. Those two things are, legally, mutually exclusive if I dont own the rights. I never made any claim to owning rights. But if I own the film there is nothing illegal about me selling that film. Dont agree? Go to ebay and have a look. Furthermore, no “collector” owns the rights. Even Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton owned only a fraction of the rights to their collection. They would have you believe that they owned the rights to every film ever made but thats simply not true. I know for a fact that they didnt own the rights to ANY IBC films, they didnt own the rights to anything prior to 1923 (those have all expired) and they didnt own the rights to films whose rights owners didnt refile their copyright prior to the new law passing in the 1970s. Thats a sizeable portion of their collection for a guy who historically was thought to have cornered the market on the business. But, back to my main point, remember I said if I own a film and its on youtube my film is worthless. If I own the only copy of a film and its not on youtube, whether I own the rights or not possession is 9/10ths of the law. Who is that film worth more to? Me, the guy who owns it? Or ABC who may own the broadcast rights but dont have the film to broadcast? Its not illegal for me to own that film even ABC doesnt. So whether its ABC or a collector all roads lead through me to get the information on that film. In regards to piracy, you dont think the cat is out of the bag? Youtube halfass tries to police pirating but there are literally thousands of copyrighted boxing matches on youtube put there by channel owners who do not own the broadcast rights. That ship has sailed and everybody knows it. HBO would be like the little dutchboy if they went after everyone who pirated their stuff. Itd be a full time job just doing that. They made their money off of those fights initially and get a little extra revenue licensing legacy footage to documentarians etc who want to do it legally on a per second basis. Theyve washed their hands of the pirates unless it conflicts with their current programming schedule, i.e. ppv rebroadcasts. So if HBO cant make it profitable to stream, exclusively, their catalogue of boxing matches that they own the rights to, why would I even entertain the idea even if I did own the rights. Even Don King, who was the most aggressive pursuer of rights violations has basically given up with the explosion of youtube. So whats the one takeaway from that if guys with deep pockets have resigned themselves to it? That once its on youtube the game is over and your options have now been drastically limited. Thats why I steer well clear of youtube.
I know they are!! they have been there for a while but its not full fights, they said to me that they had the full fights in their archive a couple of years ago and now they say they dont know anything about full Locche fights. Shady Mother****ers.
No they dont. Daniel must have misspoke. Whats on youtube is the most complete versions of the films they have.
I think were discussing different points .. regardless, a collector who pays their own money for a film has the right to hold or share as they like .. if they are then giving them away then their investment has little financial value ..
This is a very interesting thread. Anyone who spends their hard earned money to acquire something has the right to do whatever he/she wants with it. Vault it, burn it, put it up on YouTube whatever. So I agree with klompton it’s his right to do with the films what he likes. On the other hand as time continues to pass many “old” fights will probably diminish in value their just isn’t enough interest in younger generations in fights on old black and white reels of fighters that are dead for 75 plus years. So if the market did collapse I would hope for posterity the footage would be made available for the small band of people that did have an interest. But if it didn’t so be it, there are more important things to lament than not seeing a boxing film. Now as a fan if Greb was found I would hope it would be made available for historical record and to clarify his standing even Sharkey vs Wills as well but say someone shells out big money to obtain these rarities who am I or anyone to say what they should do with it. That’s life.
A couple of examples: In 1918 Greb fought an exhibition while in the Navy. It was three rounds. One round against Joe Bonds. One Round against Jim Coffey and one round against Al McCoy. Another round was fought between Joe Bonds and Jim Coffey. I found film of that exhibition bout but it only had footage of Bonds and Coffey boxing. No Greb. Can you imagine how frustrating that is to come that close. Greb fought 3 of the 4 rounds in that bout and the round I find is the one without him. The same year Greb participated in the Inter-Allied Tournament in England. Prior to the tournament the Army and Navy trained at the Naval Barracks in Chatham. Greb fought on the US Navy team. I found film of the training for that tournament. Sadly it was only the US Army team training. Still cool because it had O'Dowd, McGoorty, and Ratner (three Greb opponents) in addition to other well known fighters. But no Greb. Yes, I believe its possible and likely that SOMEWHERE Greb footage sits. I dont have any proof of that but Ive found enough films from that era in the last few years to know its absolutely possible. No doubt about it. Will they ever be found. Hard to say. Great stuff pops up all the time. This has been a very active year for me finding good stuff. Tomorrow might start a period of five years where I find nothing. You never know. But yeah, I think somethings out there.
Well, I don't know how else to be more clear about this. I am a guy with deep pockets. I do not currently have a collection. I am interested in acquiring both a collection and the rights to distribute the collection. You have one of those, I only asked if you had the other as well and told you 20k is way too cheap for it. I don't feel like we have to engage in an argument as to how difficult the distributions rights would be to acquire, or how much revenue one could expect from distributing a boxing collection. I only ever brought it up to you because I wasn't sure if you'd looked into it and I didn't want you to feel like you were being taken advantage of. I just meant to be upfront not argue about likeliness. If you really don't believe your collection has worth beyond a collector's worth and you are willing to sell it, sell it to me. I'll distribute it the same way every old rare classic cartoon collection gets distributed and if I fall flat on my face you can have you a laugh. It doesn't really matter one way or another. I'm looking into who owns the rights to the careers I'm interested in and after I secure a license for distribution then I'll worry about getting a collection. Something tells me if I had a shiney distribution license to show you you'd be more inclined to take this seriously and less argumentative. I don't assume many other collectors would be very different so I have to assume I've approached this all wrong. Either way, this conversation was very interesting.
Which is why I think investing a distribution company for old boxing isn't a bad idea. If all it takes is money to gain enough access to originals either through big companies like HBO or collectors and some money for distribution rights, I actually have quite a bit a of money. It just never came up before this. I have told y'all on several occasions I'm an inventor. I understand owning rights pretty well, I've been on television plenty of times and done my fair share of negotiations. I got lawyer to give me advice and ****. If it's crazy I'll find out soon enough.
