Page 1 of Welcome to this new forum

After much discussion with Mark, we both decided to start this forum. At present as you know, the various contributors to DVD Reviewer have little contact with each other bar the mailing list, but with the following news we thought it was best to keep the inevitable discussions to a forum on the website, since it is such a sensible issue.

We have been approached by a rather large company with a view to purchasing the site. At present things are still early stages, however we`ve been in discussion with them for the last month and things are progressing nicely.

We will bring you more details on the specifics as and when we have them, but for now we thought as such valuable contributors, you all deserve to know sooner rather than later. As in the contracts you have all signed, we will of course be negotiating with you for your IP.

Clearly any such leaking of the aforementioned information would not only jeopodise this sale going through, but also possibly compromise various NDA`s that myself and Mark have signed. Therefore we cannot afford for you to accidentally reply to someone you shouldn`t do.

We would ask that nobody discusses this outside of this private forum, and be extra careful who you tell back in the real world.

Wow!

I`m not sure if that`s good news or not.. will the site continue in its present form or are they just after the name and the code. Will we still be asked to submit reviews - basically I would like to know what our future as contributors is, or will be and do we have to give the dvds back?

Just rather curious

John

PS When will all this go ahead anyway?

I share some of John`s concerns. Are we "selling our souls to the devil" here? When larger companies take over excellent small and independent web sites, things don`t always work out so well for those involved in the sites!

What if this company is a studio or has affiliations with a studio? Will they want lots of editorial control? Will they be approving reviews, columns or news stories? Will they have a veto on what we might want to post? Is it the end of my BBC-bashing?

And of course any loss of independence could quite easily cause a fall in readership. After all, who wants to read content approved by the spin doctors of a large company?

Rich

Don`t worry, the fact we have a very good independant image is what made us appeal to this company in the first place. I wish we could tell you who it is but we just can`t, for reasons that will become clear in a few weeks.

They are basically looking to buy us as a going concern, to keep doing what we are doing, but all of us getting better paid for it.

Presumably as the rest are very quiet about this, they either have no opinion or are at the least not against it. Anyhow, we`ll be able to let you know more about this next week after another meeting with them.

Hi,

I think we reviewers have a right to know who this mysterious buyer is. I have worked long and hard (as have all the others) helping to make this site what it is, and feel sort of responsible for its future.

Come on Rob - spill the beans!

Peter.

Sorry - the ID of the purchaser can only be known to the company shareholders.

But we can say that the purchase consideration will not only benefit the shareholders, but the final clauses on the contracts you all signed mean that your IP will be negotiated with you for outright purchase. This may be on a standard fee per review, so the more you`ve done, the better off you will be!

Mark

Will the negotiations be on an individual basis or will you be negotiating for us on our behalf?

John

I`ve got no problems with Reviewer negotiating for me. We do know where they live of course!!!

Kelvin.

Well the purchaser will probably want to pay a flat fee for each review no matter who did it. The clause states that the directors of Reviewer Ltd can also relinquish all rights to your IP. Basically the purchaser is likely to offer a fixed sum and dump the reviews where the reviewer is being unreasonable. But we will of course try to get the best price for all you guys ;-)