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Post by Alex on Apr 1, 2013 14:47:13 GMT
Oh, please let me give you £100 of my money so you can sign a comic and send it to me, Mr Anonymous Nobody!
Seriously?
Also, you've doubled the amount you're asking for.
For a PDF reader app that you won't even be able to actually release legally.
I actually sincerely hope no-one's dumb enough to get you that money.
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Post by Beeth on Apr 1, 2013 15:23:31 GMT
Honestly? I supported the concept, though I really think you've gone about it in utterly the wrong way. You don't appear to have taken good advice on board and, at best, just seem to have jumped straight into a Kickstarter not even sure if you'll get a reply from Sega, never mind if the app gets off the ground at all. You're effectively charging 10 pounds a pop for the app through the Kickstarter alone. I'm no legal expert by any means, but that sort of thing sets alarm bells ringing. And when I got to the £100 "reward", I really thought you'd been taking the proverbial all along. You're willing to sign your "own personal, mint condition" copy of a rare comic and send it off to some random stranger, thereby committing the double whammy of ballsing up your own collection (unless you happen to have another mint preview issue lying around) and completely destroy the value of the comic in the process. I need to say, why on earth would you ever think your signature would add value to anything? Also: I had a product a few years back that I took to the BBC and that was a huge success based on the same method. Care to divulge what this was, with sources if possible? In short though, you've destroyed all credibility and trust in your project in a single post. If you genuinely want this to succeed, scrap it and start again. As in, completely re-think your approach. |
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Post by L. T. Dangerous on Apr 1, 2013 15:45:39 GMT
While I'd love a dedicated STC app, I do get the feeling it needs something else about it to justify a grand. I use ComicZeal and it's really very straightforward to transfer my .cbr files over to that. I'm not against the idea at all but I do think it needs something to make it stand out. A thousand pounds is an awful lot of money considering the basic structure of the app is already complete.
If I might ask, how will the money be split? Not trying to criticise or be overbearing, I'm genuinely curious.
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Post by ShayMay on Apr 1, 2013 15:47:43 GMT
Yeah... I was under the impression that the £500 was for the e-mail to send to Sega, rather than to fund the actual app: in this case, although I would have been doubtful that it'd succeed, I'd be willing to chuck a couple of quid your way.
The way this is just seems... well, illegal. There are so many problems with this that my confidence has been shot.
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Post by Mambo's Here! Look Busy! on Apr 1, 2013 16:40:11 GMT
I can see why you'd want to make an app like this; Archie has one afterall, and I am aware there are STC scans out there.... but this just smells wrong to me as well.
If you're serious about getting STC into the limelight, then I'd suggest supporting the comic a different way. Research a way to get SEGA's attention without getting us old crusty fans to fork over our cash.
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Post by Alex on Apr 1, 2013 16:46:33 GMT
Yeah... I was under the impression that the £500 was for the e-mail to send to Sega, rather than to fund the actual app: in this case, although I would have been doubtful that it'd succeed, I'd be willing to chuck a couple of quid your way. The way this is just seems... well, illegal. There are so many problems with this that my confidence has been shot. I can also say that the cost to talk to Sega is bogus. If I had any desire to, I could be talking to them by the end of this week about something like this, for free, through their press and marketing channels. How, exactly, this guy having £500 in his bank account would somehow get him in touch with Sega about a (frankly, doomed) prospect is just something I can't understand at all. If you want to make an app to read STC PDF scans on (which you haven't even done yourself from your own, claimed-to-be-full collection and instead have taken them from a significantly old set of freely available scans by STC Archive), it should be given away freely. You don't own the rights to any of the material, so have no justification to be making money on it. Asking people for £1000 for a very basic app they probably will never even be able to get following the conclusion of said kickstarter and Sega turning around and saying nope is, honestly, a joke. |
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Post by Charles on Apr 1, 2013 21:39:26 GMT
All that stuff up there? Cosigned.
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Post by Nigel Kitching on Apr 2, 2013 13:55:50 GMT
Yeah... I was under the impression that the £500 was for the e-mail to send to Sega, rather than to fund the actual app: in this case, although I would have been doubtful that it'd succeed, I'd be willing to chuck a couple of quid your way. The way this is just seems... well, illegal. There are so many problems with this that my confidence has been shot. I can also say that the cost to talk to Sega is bogus. If I had any desire to, I could be talking to them by the end of this week about something like this, for free, through their press and marketing channels. How, exactly, this guy having £500 in his bank account would somehow get him in touch with Sega about a (frankly, doomed) prospect is just something I can't understand at all. If you want to make an app to read STC PDF scans on (which you haven't even done yourself from your own, claimed-to-be-full collection and instead have taken them from a significantly old set of freely available scans by STC Archive), it should be given away freely. You don't own the rights to any of the material, so have no justification to be making money on it. Asking people for £1000 for a very basic app they probably will never even be able to get following the conclusion of said kickstarter and Sega turning around and saying nope is, honestly, a joke. I'm a bit uncomfortable about this actually. Now I don't mind at all if scans of my stuff are freely handed around. This means that some people who otherwise wouldn't, will now get the chance to read my work. Nobody makes any money from it (including me which I'm fine with) and I'm happy. But there is money involved in this venture in some way. And somebody seems to want to receive money. I don't understand why money is involved and I'm not interested enough to look into the ins and outs. But I will say this: If anyone uses my work for commercial gain then I'm not happy. Fleetway reprinted my work and paid me nothing and I wasn't happy about that. So, if this App is a commercial venture (as it appears to be) then I'm not happy again. Incidentally when my 2000AD strip AHAB was reprinted recently I got payment. This is the way it should work. |
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Post by Nigel Kitching on Apr 2, 2013 13:58:02 GMT
Back in the Birmingham meet, Nigel said that Sega had the ultimate say, and all the rights reverted to them. Some characters are in a grey area (no contracts) but he said he believed they all belong to Sega. That was a few years ago, not sure if anything has changed, but I don't think so. I had a PM chat with Nigel a few years ago (when I was first mulling this idea over) and he pretty much confirmed the same but then Egmont could call a claim on some of the content. Just look at what's happening with Archie Sonic and Ken Penders. What's a PM chat? Do you have a record of me saying what you claim? Presumanble this is something I typed. |
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Post by Charles on Apr 2, 2013 18:53:38 GMT
Incidentally when my 2000AD strip AHAB was reprinted recently I got payment. This is the way it should work. I didn't know Rebellion was paying the creators of the Megazine "floppies". Is that a regular thing they do with trades and reprints, do you know? |
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Post by Sam on Apr 2, 2013 19:20:12 GMT
While it's not our battle, perhaps we should form a letter to Kickstarter letting them know our concerns and objections?
We are in a sense, protecting the work that has brought us all together.
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Post by Mambo's Here! Look Busy! on Apr 3, 2013 9:45:57 GMT
I have a feeling you can report anything on kickstarter. Stu mentioned it on the old fassbuck.
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Post by Nigel Kitching on Apr 3, 2013 14:32:01 GMT
Incidentally when my 2000AD strip AHAB was reprinted recently I got payment. This is the way it should work. I didn't know Rebellion was paying the creators of the Megazine "floppies". Is that a regular thing they do with trades and reprints, do you know? Rebellion have been paying reprint fees for as long as I can remember. Unlike Fleetway who stopped giving me work and reprinted my stories without payment of any kind. And no, I didn't agree that they could do that they just did. Of course I failed to make it clear beforehand that I didn't want them to reprint my work either. |
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Post by The KKM on Apr 3, 2013 17:28:09 GMT
AS I mentioned in the start, aren't reprint rights Egmont's? SEGA gave them the creative licence, and the stories were done with no contracts, so wouldn't they be the ones hoarding everything by this point?
Or on the other hand and as Mr. Kitching mentions, the rights are probably on the writers/artists' hands.
Or maybe they ARE on SEGA's hands, although I doubt it.
They're not on YOUR hands, however, so I'm not understanding how YOU'RE not understanding you're rushing things and overall having an awful idea.
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Post by RedDevilDazzy on Apr 3, 2013 19:54:10 GMT
Poor Twimfy, at the start it seemed like an awesome idea. Though the idea has been shot down now, oh well for the best.
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Post by Charles on Apr 3, 2013 20:21:25 GMT
Rebellion have been paying reprint fees for as long as I can remember. Cool (esp. since 2000 AD used to be Fleetway). AS I mentioned in the start, aren't reprint rights Egmont's? SEGA gave them the creative licence, and the stories were done with no contracts, so wouldn't they be the ones hoarding everything by this point? Or on the other hand and as Mr. Kitching mentions, the rights are probably on the writers/artists' hands. My understanding is that unless there's a contract saying "the company will own this", the writer/artist owns it. At least one 2000 AD creator (Hilary Robinson) sued Egmont Fleetway and won because of this. |
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Post by Nigel Kitching on Apr 3, 2013 21:39:06 GMT
AS I mentioned in the start, aren't reprint rights Egmont's? SEGA gave them the creative licence, and the stories were done with no contracts, so wouldn't they be the ones hoarding everything by this point? Or on the other hand and as Mr. Kitching mentions, the rights are probably on the writers/artists' hands. Or maybe they ARE on SEGA's hands, although I doubt it. They're not on YOUR hands, however, so I'm not understanding how YOU'RE not understanding you're rushing things and overall having an awful idea. Egmont have no 'reprint rights' - this phrase doesn't really mean anything. That sounds rude of me - sorry. It's like this: Egmont made a number of licensing agreements in the area of merchandising their property. A lot of this was Sonic T Shirts, lunch boxes etc. the comic was just one more species of merchandise. These agreements would have a period of time over which they operated. Then the agreement would end or be renegotiated possibly. So obviously the licensing agreement between Egmont and Sega ran out a long time ago and there is currently no agreement in place. I did once talk to somebody in the business more about how licensing agreements work and it can get a bit complicated. But anyway Egmont cannot make any use of Sega property since there is no current agreement. That's what I think will be the case anyway. The creator ownership question of characters such as Captain Plunder is a quite different area to do with copyright, IP and all that. |
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Post by Balls on Apr 4, 2013 10:56:07 GMT
If I published my own Captain Plunder comic and gave you 3%, would that be cool?
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Post by Nigel Kitching on Apr 4, 2013 11:48:47 GMT
If I published my own Captain Plunder comic and gave you 3%, would that be cool? I can't tell if you're joking or not. If you're not obviously I'm a bit short on details at the moment. |
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Post by Twimfy on Apr 8, 2013 15:54:23 GMT
Woah! Ok, Sorry for the lack of an update, busy week. ANYWAY Kickstarter funding cancelled, project cancelled, idea cancelled, enthusiasm cancelled. I've come back to this thread to find that people seem to be calling me a scammer and a liar, two things I am definitely not. I just wrote a massive reply explaining every little detail but then I remember this is the internet and people are going to rip me apart no matter what I say. Some key points: 1. The £1000 amount is due to Kickstarter not allowing you to raise money for an idea, you have to offer something. So I figured £5 for the app and £5 towards the fundraiser seemed like a good way to do it. The £500 would help cover the admin fee and £5 would get you the app if it was approved which seems like a good deal for something that would like retail for probably a lot more. What I failed to cover was that should the licensing attempt fail then the backer would get £5 they paid for the App back. That doesn't sound fair BUT had Kickstarter allowed for funding towards only the idea it would have taken the same amount of people to donate half the amount to get to the goal and if they'd been prepared to help reach that goal then it's the same difference. Or maybe my logic is flawed. Anyway it doesn't matter now the project is cancelled, it was a stupid idea and thankfully no harm was done. I admit that I completely failed to communicate what I was doing effectively. 2. Sega absolutely do require a £500 admin fee. I know this after producing an iPad based retro gaming magazine called the Console Collectors Guide a few years ago. This was done with a small amount of collaboration with retrocollect.com. Anyway our 2nd issue was to co-incide with Sonic's 20th Anniversary. Despite magazines not having to have permission to use video game specific content (within reason) as long as it's credited, Apple (wrongfully) refused to let it be published and wanted something from Sega saying we could print what we'd put together (this was very odd as our first issue had been all about the history of the Sega Megadrive). After disputing this for some time they wouldn't move on their decision so we went to Sega looking for a release, they tried to whack us with the £500 admin cost that I speak of. Soon after we gave up having overshot the anniversary. We discontinued the magazine as it was clearly Apple causing the problem, it took a good month of hard work to put the magazine together and it would have been heartbreaking to produce another issue only to hit the Apple wall of nonsense again. 3. The Issue 0 £100 reward was meant to be a fun tongue in cheek thing. Do you really assume I'm arrogant enough to think people want my signature? I knew that anyone throwing £100+ into the mix was clearly passionate about the project and just wanted to see it done, I though it would be whacky to offer something stupid as a reward. Of course humour and sarcasm doesn't translate well when put into text so I guess that backfired. 4. @nigel - We did have a brief back and forth via messages years ago (in fact it was xmas eve 2009 when you first replied to me) I can screen grab for proof if need be. 5. Super Saiyan 4 Goku - Yes those are pre-existing scans but the plan was to completely re-scan every issue for better quality at lower compression from my yes-full-collection, I used what was already out there for convenience and proof of concept. Not boasting but just hate being called a liar via a sideways dig like that. I managed to get those scans down to ~3.5Mb from ~8Mb without losing too much quality but some of those scans aren't very good, that said, hats off to whoever took the time to do them. Anyway I felt like I'd done something exciting and was hoping people were going to get equally excited but I forgot that this is real life and negativity, blame and scams rule supreme. I'm not an idiot, I know there are correct procedures in place for getting things like this sorted but it seems these days unless you're one of the big boys with a fat pay check you get nowhere, I was simply trying an alternative approach. Apologies to all of those I upset/p*ssed off, I'm going to erase all evidence of this ever happening where I can but hopefully I'll stick around and contribute to the forums, if you'll have me. I'll just finish by saying one more thing. If I could afford to do this myself then I would have. And maybe one day I will at which point I'd be happy to let you know what the outcome is. |
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Post by Nigel Kitching on Apr 9, 2013 21:51:33 GMT
I'm sure we did communicate sometime in the past but I don't recall what was said. And it seems it was a few years ago. No need to dig anything out though.
No hard feelings from me but I hope you understand that when I hear that somebody plans to reprint my work and I don't feel I have been consulted then I feel a little uncomfortable. There's not usually anything I can do about it but I was never happy when Fleetway reprinted my work. They continued to profit from my (and others) work but paid me nothing.
I'm not accusing you of anything - I really don't understand quite what you were doing but I did get that you were asking for money.
But, as I say, no hard feelings from me.
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Post by Sam on Apr 10, 2013 10:28:39 GMT
Feel free to stay, and I'm sure there are people here that will help you consult Sega should you want to take another stab at it.
It's one of those things that is borne out of passion and not completely thought through (and I should know, I've had many a set back when I was a younger film maker - by not thinking everything through).
There are just things that need thinking through. I'm of the ilk that everyone should be rewarded for their work whether a contract was signed or not. It's been the same on every film with every pot of prize money ever earned even when a contract was signed to say that people were giving up payment. I like to be fair. But that's a discussion for another thread. As Nigel has said, he feels uncomfortable seeing his work used without compensation, and I'm fully in the belief that he should be.
There is nothing wrong with contacting Sega, and we can exhaust every channel available to us rather than hand over money. Money that could be better served going to the original creators. But where does that end? How do we agree who gets what divvied up between the artist, colourist, letterer, script writer etc.
Passion and drive is good, but don't let it get in the way of clear thinking.
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Post by Mambo's Here! Look Busy! on Apr 10, 2013 17:01:00 GMT
I would recommend against deleting everything you've posted, it's a tad confusing when looking back at topics. Your idea is not necessarily a bad one, it just needs a bit more thought and some work. In some ways I hope your decision to sell your entire collection isn't because of this thread, I mean... it's an entire collection! That must have taken some dedication! Also please feel free to stick around. If you wanna talk STC, these are the people to converse with! Granted the forum's been a bit quiet of late, but I'm hoping this year is gonna be big!  |
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Post by Twimfy on Apr 11, 2013 1:45:33 GMT
I would recommend against deleting everything you've posted, it's a tad confusing when looking back at topics. Your idea is not necessarily a bad one, it just needs a bit more thought and some work. In some ways I hope your decision to sell your entire collection isn't because of this thread, I mean... it's an entire collection! That must have taken some dedication! Also please feel free to stick around. If you wanna talk STC, these are the people to converse with! Granted the forum's been a bit quiet of late, but I'm hoping this year is gonna be big! No I'll keep the info lingering around for people to reference but anything involving raising money will go just for securities sake. Selling the comics has nothing to do with it. I want to focus on my US collection now and they're just sitting there not doing anything when I'm sure someone else will appreciate them more. Yeah they're part of my childhood and growing up but at 27 years old I find my self becoming way less materialistic than I used to be so it just feels right for them to go. It's something I've been considering for a long time and the rise of the app came off the back of selling them as I'd still like to have access should I need it. The dedicated CBR readers out there are good but their syncing process is a pain in the ass, at least my STC app is just one big .ipa which can be synced in one shot through iTunes. |
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Post by The KKM on Apr 11, 2013 12:49:51 GMT
Your only problem was that as far as you were showing it publicly (and maybe it's now what happened but miscommunication), the whole thing felt like you were putting, as the Portuguese say, the carriage in front of the oxes. We weren't even sure you had the rights to deal with digital reprints, and you were already asking for money. Slow down, take it easy, and things will move.
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