JR, I am sure you make some really good points, but I stopped reading after the second paragraph. Again - not asking for Bruce to name names (as he frequently requests for others to do), just asking a simple Yes or No question. Does Bruce have firsthand knowledge of these "unknowing middlemen" refusing to refund buyers as he said in his email newsletter?
----- Original Message ----- From: James Richard To: Sean Linkenback Cc: [email protected] Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 4:16 PM Subject: Re: [MOPO] Bruce's latest information on the fakes Sean, Obviously I meant that you and Bruce were right about the moral obligations of people involved in this chain of events to make appropriate restitution. It seems to me that at this point the only person who has a right to "out" the name of a seller/auctioneer/trader who has refused to refund someone's money prior to the resolution of the court cases is the person who bought the fake from that particular seller. If anyone else were to give out names publicly in print, they would be opening themselves up to a defamation lawsuit, so I didn't figure Bruce was going to answer your question by coughing up names as you insisted he should be doing. But your question clearly indicated that the reason you wanted to know the names of people who have not refunded money at this point would be to vilify and condemn them -- and without knowing all the details of each individual transaction, that would be unfair and wrong. That's why I started talking about "extenuating circumstances". Like I said, if someone made a $4,000 commission on a sale of a $20,000 fake, then at the most that person is ethically obligated to reimburse only the $4,000 he made on the deal, not the entire $20,000 that was paid. And if we table the ethical obligations for a moment, legally, a court would be unlikely to order the repayment of even the $4,000 commission if the person could demonstrate that they knew nothing about the poster being fake and sold it "as is" with no warranty. The law recognizes and upholds the concept of "buyer beware" in this country. It's different in Europe and most other places. But in America we operate on a form of pirate capitalism that says "unless you can actually prove to a jury that somebody knowingly and deliberated lied to you with malice aforethought about a product, they are not responsible for your losses or damages." Going back to moral obligations, what about the probability that the person who got the bulk of the $20,000 may well have paid someone else $20,000 for it when he bought it? So if he didn't know it was a fake when he paid good money for it and then resold it in good faith (and has since spent that money believing it was legally his and he was entitled to spend it), why should he now be on the hook to take *two* separate $20,000 hits -- the first when he bought the fake and the second when he has to repay money from the subsequent sale which he has already spent? Perhaps morally he should be willing to repay the $20,000 he got from the sale and then take his chances on maybe getting something back from the court someday, but why should he be the only one to have to bear the whole burden? Why shouldn't the last buyer also have to wait on the court reparations? So, it is perfectly correct for people in this situation to invite others involved to join them in the lawsuits and let the courts decide who gets what of anything that may or may not be recovered. -- JR Sean Linkenback wrote: JR, I don't understand - both Bruce and I are right about what? I never asked if the "unknowing middlemen" had enough funds available to refund or any other question that you answered. My question was a direct one if Bruce had actual firsthand knowledge of these"unknowing middlemen" not refunding money of customers as he claimed in his message or if he is just further making waves while seemingly trying to promote himself as the only safe place to shop. It's not a right or wrong question, it's a yes or no question which so far he hasn't answered. ----- Original Message ----- From: James Richard To: Sean Linkenback Cc: [email protected] Sent: Monday, September 07, 2009 4:44 AM Subject: Re: [MOPO] Bruce's latest information on the fakes Sean, In theory, both you and Bruce are right. From a purely moral and ethical standpoint the "unknowing middlemen" should have to reimburse their customers. But what about practical matters? How many of those "middlemen" have $20,000 or $30,000 or more free cash laying around that they can hand over in reparations? Not many, would be my guess, particularly in the current economic situation. These people may want to refund the money, but they simply may not be able to. Also consider what their situation is if they were truly innocent "middlemen"... like someone selling on consignment. They may have been given $20,000 for the fake, but they only made a 10% or 20% commission on the deal... maybe $2,000 to $4,000 bucks. They passed the bulk of the $20,000 on to whomever they got the poster from in the first place. Since they didn't get to keep the whole $20,000 in the first place, why should they have to cough up the whole $20,000 to pay back the last buyer in the chain? And then there's the daisy chain effect. How many times did a particular fake change hands among innocent buyers and sellers before the highly-skilled fraud was detected? Maybe for some of these fakes there is a long change of multiple sales and trades involving many people who got, exchanged and spent money generated from the sale of the fake and none of them knew it was fake (and most of whom do not have the money to repay... and who do they repay it to, anyway? That's where the courts come in -- they have to figure out who owes what to whom and how much guilt or innocence each link in the chain contained). In other words, it's a royal mess. And chances are very little will ever be recovered or repaid on most of these fakes. Those who bought them from a well-heeled auction house like Heritage who could afford to refund the money (and who probably had an insurance company helping them out on that) are the lucky ones. Many of the others will ever get much if any of their money back, regardless of the outcome of court cases. The scary thing is that, in many of the court cases, there may be legal decisions which don't favor the buyers at all. After all, except for a couple of upscale dealers/auctioneers, these posters were sold "as is". They did not come with a guarantee of anything and legally most of the sellers are probably not libel according to the letter of the law. This is why the whole fake thing has to be stopped now, or at least serious efforts made to reign it in. The fakes have already done tremendous damage and we probably haven't seen the end of most of the chains of destruction yet. Sellers of high-end posters are simply going to have to bite the bullet, get with a couple of the recognized experts in the field (we all know who they are) and arrange a viable "opinion of authenticity" process which they can use in the future to reasonably safely sell the very expensive type of posters in future. Anyone who thinks this hobby-industry can go back to doing business with the very expensive items the way it was done in the past with the same kind of "of course it's authentic" attitude is kidding themselves. Clearly the mere reputation of the seller isn't going to be enough anymore. -- JR Sean Linkenback wrote: Hi Bruce, someone just pointed out your latest club email to me and I read one passage with a lot of interest: "It seems that some of those who unknowingly sold some of these as middlemen are taking the odd position that they have no liability in this, and that they want the people they unknowingly cheated to join them in lawsuits against those they obtained the fakes from, and that they won't be refunding those they unknowingly cheated." Do you have any actual firsthand knowledge of this happening? If so, isn't this one of the things that should be "outed" so that people can know do stay away from any middlemen who deny responsibility/liability. You talked before about how disappointed you were that people might be withholding this sort of information, are you now doing the same? And if anyone who is interested in this subject hasn't read Bruce's new club message, I encourage you to do so, as it contains a nice summary of many of the events. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content. Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [email protected] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
