A cautionary tale about dealing with sales agents.

P

paul spurrier

What do you do when:

You make a film that plays at film festivals around the world.
You get a positive response and win a few awards.
Your film sells to over twenty countries around the world.
It gets released theatrically, on DVD and on Blu Ray.

But...

Your international sales agent simply refuses to pay you the money he owes, and stops taking your calls.

???

Obviously one way is through the courts, but this will be costly, lengthy, require fee advances to lawyers, and if the sales agent should go bankrupt, you're just going to be left with a lot of costs.

When the sales agent is a member of the IFTA, you can call for them to arbitrate.
But what if it turns out that the sales agent whose web page has always claimed that they were an IFTA member turns out not to be?

Basically, there is not much you can do.

Perhaps the only thing you can do is to publicise the story, so that other filmmakers might be able to avoid the same problems.

www.michaeltavernamontecristo.info

To read about it, visit:

Thank you.

Paul Spurrier
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Your international sales agent simply refuses to pay you the money he owes, and stops taking your calls.
Click to expand...
You are missing something important. For the very reason you are describing, International deals are always done as cash up front deals or you won't get paid. Every single indie filmmaker I've spoken to has been essentially ROBBED by distributors that they signed pay-per-sale deals with. It's bad enough dealing with domestic distributors, but foreign distributors are just plain con-artists, and they get away with it because they know that litigation is cost prohibitive. The could care less about IFTA. And don't go publicizing stuff because they will just come back at you with a defamation claim.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Blade - There are bad people and good people in every profession. Yes, when you are dealing with international businesses, it is more difficult to put checks and balances because of different legal systems. But there are many honest and good sales agents.

Paul - sorry to hear that you are not getting paid. If your sales agreement has an arbitration clause with IFTA arbitration, I suggest using it. It does not matter if you or the sales agent are members or not. It is the same as using American Arbitration Association (or any other arbitrator for that matter) only that IFTA's list of arbitrators have more experience and knowledge in the field (which means - less research time - less legal fees).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Do you mean your distributor? I'm not seeing the connecttion between an internal sales dude and your film.
If somebody owes ya money, go collect it. This is just part of being self employed.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Blade - There are bad people and good people in every profession. Yes, when you are dealing with international businesses, it is more difficult to put checks and balances because of different legal systems. But there are many honest and good sales agents.
Click to expand...
Paid up front. That's how it's done with foreign distros.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I am gonna repeat what is already told,

domestic, is self-distribution,
international, all front-end. money in your bank account before you sign contract.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
grinner said:
Do you mean your distributor? I'm not seeing the connecttion between an internal sales dude and your film.
If somebody owes ya money, go collect it. This is just part of being self employed.
Click to expand...
Also part of being self employed is understanding who and
where you are doing business. Collecting money owed you
by a small distributor in an foreign country when you are
in the US can cost more than the money owed. Which is
what Paul is saying.

I wish it were as simple as go collect it. But finding the money
trail of a small, independently produced movie in four or five
non US territories is complicated and very, very costly. I'm
owed in the neighborhood of $25,000 for two of my movies
by a sales agent who is claiming he can't verify the money
trail. He is not going to spend months and $15,000 to recover
the $25,000 and I sure can't afford to do it.

Lesson learned.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
mate,

it can be like this,

PRODUCER
yes, you wanted to meet, forgive me but your territory is?

INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTOR (I.D)
Europe including UK. I need the rights including the dubbing.

PRODUCER
I will not give you the rights, you only get the LICENSE TO SCREEN AND DUB in your territory. BTW, how are you gonna make the payment?

I.D
I'll give you 70% of the net.

PRODUCER
net? okay, I need an estimate, what would be my net 70%? what am I looking at?

I.D
7 million in US dollars.

PRODUCER
tell you what, why don't you give me just 5 million all up front? you keep the remaining 2 million that you make after the collection.

regards,
ace.inc1
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top