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CBS/Paramount sues to stop Axanar

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the definition of a proxy bid is when you're bidding on behalf of someone who can't attend the auction? If so, shouldn't they have written instructions from a real-live person with max bid amounts and such? In hindsight, don't you wish you had said, "Prove you have buyers you're a proxy for, or I'm leaving." How many of those 70-some-odd people would have followed you out the door?

Adam's letter says Propworx is bidding on behalf of the item owner... "because Propworx has a fiduciary obligation to the owner". For transparency, this seller floor price is supposed to be disclosed in the form of a reserve, not counterbids. If its a no reserve auction then owner bidding is shilling (the owner driving up their own price). And if Propworx is the owner it is worse.

Ebay has undisclosed reserves, but it doesn't have the owner bidding you up.

It sounds like Propworx may have redefined a business SOP to be what serves them, without being clear with others. Remember Axanar's "we are nonprofit"?
 
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Yes, I can see this link. I'm not sure what they're talking about. Am busy googling. If you have more info please post, specifically if pertaining to Beyond. Thanks


EDIT: I'm getting no search results on it.
 
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It would be major news if the new Star Trek was no longer in distribution. It is a tent pole film. It is a tent pole for Paramount.

It would be a signal of something really wrong. Which woild discourage any buyer.

It would cost someone BILLIONS to buy Star Trek from Paramount. It's one of the few, if not only, franchises they own. They won't give it up easily.
 
How many of us fans would it take to pool enough money and buy the rights to Star Trek? I mean, didn't Justin Lin say "Trek belongs to the fans", so we can't let him down, can we? ;)
 
How many of us fans would it take to pool enough money and buy the rights to Star Trek? I mean, didn't Justin Lin say "Trek belongs to the fans", so we can't let him down, can we? ;)
Start crowdfunding. We now know there is a section of society that will support it.
 
Yes, I can see this link. I'm not sure what they're talking about. Am busy googling. If you have more info please post, specifically if pertaining to Beyond. Thanks


EDIT: I'm getting no search results on it.
I'm not sure what it is either, Just ran across it while I was going over the business reports from Friday's meeting. (reason unknown)
Paramount is a subsidy, not a publicly traded corporation so it's exact current value would be known to a few insiders and people invited to look over it's books. You could purchase reports but they are often outdated, a minority stake could be in the hundreds of millions to a billion. Clearly Paramount is looking to sell a percentage to raise money not sell the whole thing. Sometimes if private investors can't be found the subsidy could become a spin-off as in the case of Dupont 's spin off of Chemours.
We look at this Anaxar as it was some kind of a threat to the Star Trek franchise but from a corporate perspective it's probably an embarrassment like a dead tree in the front yard of a house for sale.
 
How many of us fans would it take to pool enough money and buy the rights to Star Trek? I mean, didn't Justin Lin say "Trek belongs to the fans", so we can't let him down, can we? ;)

I'm sure at one point Alec Peters could have put of a bid of say, 1.3 million... ;)
 
Adam's letter says Propworx is bidding on behalf of the item owner... "because Propworx has a fiduciary obligation to the owner". For transparency, this seller floor price is supposed to be disclosed in the form of a reserve, not counterbids. If its a no reserve auction then owner bidding is shilling (the owner driving up their own price). And if Propworx is the owner it is worse.

Ebay has undisclosed reserves, but it doesn't have the owner bidding you up.

It sounds like Propworx may have redefined a business SOP to be what serves them, without being clear with others. Remember Axanar's "we are nonprofit"?

Propworx should have had a reserve on the item Adam was talking about. It seems amateurish not to have set one prior to the auction, but it's probably not fraud. Auction houses can and do bid on behalf of their customers all the time. That's a proxy bid. A shill bid IS fraud and it's when the auction house itself bids against the buyer just to jack up the price, but they have no intention of winning. It's done secretly, and is probably rampant on eBay.

What Alec did at the second BSG live auction from my memory as a bidder watching the live stream was bid on items he wanted for his personal collection. Well, that wasn't fraud but he didn't disclose it up front before the auction started. IIRC, it became clear in the chat room where Alec finally fessed up and said something to the effect of "Well I'm just a fan, NBC Universal is making me bid on this stuff like everyone else has to."

Problems with that hinky move are

1. Only Alec knew how many more of each item he had in his warehouse. Scarcity = Value

2. He saved the 23% buyer's premium because he was the auctioneer. So right off the bat, he has a 23% advantage over other bidders.

3. He made the auction seem patently unfair. I mean, who wants to bid against the auctioneer?
 
Did some reading on auctions and shill bidding. In some (but not all) countries, it's legal only as long as (1) there's a reserve price and (2) the shill bid is below that reserve. Otherwise, it's a criminal act. Don't know about the USA because (presumably) each state has their own laws. I did find that California requires auction houses to be licensed and bonded. I wonder if PropWorx was. Probably was because I don't see how they could have avoided that requirements, but nothing would surprise me anymore.
 
Did some reading on auctions and shill bidding. In some (but not all) countries, it's legal only as long as (1) there's a reserve price and (2) the shill bid is below that reserve. Otherwise, it's a criminal act. Don't know about the USA because (presumably) each state has their own laws. I did find that California requires auction houses to be licensed and bonded. I wonder if PropWorx was. Probably was because I don't see how they could have avoided that requirements, but nothing would surprise me anymore.
I haven't a clue but it some fields you can run an operation on another persons license. I never visited any PropWorx website but I'd think you should be able to find some license number around somewhere.
 
James Comey investigated and said he could find no wrongdoing. Meanwhile Trump wants to take Axanar over and make it all about him. Just move the set to Australia. BitTorrent will love them.
 
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