tiemen
Sellaband addict in waiting
Posts: 3
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Post by tiemen on Feb 24, 2010 14:17:18 GMT
My first post on these boards Anyway, I guess we could've seen this coming. Doesn't change things though. Personally I'll just wait and see what happens. I'm not going to take out my money first thing the website is back online, I'll wait for an official statement from the new owners about where they want to go first. Can always remove my money after that!
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Post by Lucretia on Feb 24, 2010 14:25:22 GMT
Just speculating about the buyer: Could it be the former sellaband.de partner MM MerchandisingMedia GmbH or another ProSiebenSat.1 subsidiary? Btw, SellaBration in Munich is OK for me, count me in . But don't you think it's a little bit too early to sellabrate?? Hmm.. Is MaWa from anywhere near Munich? Or even has Thor's "couple of days off" been spent buying a company instead? Don't forget we do have some Germans round here. Who knows, maybe we find the buyer is someone already known. Interesting to see what the view on that one would be
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triff
Sellaband addict in waiting
Posts: 3
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Post by triff on Feb 24, 2010 14:29:01 GMT
I think this could make Sellaband stronger, the talk has always been its a con and they are just taking your money. If the company running it can go bankrupt and then sold and believers money stays intact then may be more people may be willing to put money in.
But it all depends on how the new managers deal with the company, but it can not be as bad as the old company in the end. What made Sellaband in the early days was the community and the Sellabrations etc. I have met some great people (oh its you lot).
So what better to get the community back together than a sellabration.
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xahmol
Sellaband addict in waiting
Posts: 34
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Post by xahmol on Feb 24, 2010 14:30:33 GMT
Hm...that all makes not much sense...why go into insolvency in the first place Oh, and almost forgot: with a bankruptcy ruling you can lay off all personell without any hasle or payments. Without a bankruptcy laying off personell in the Netherlands is very costly as you have to have a social plan and pay a penalty to the staff layed off. Job protection is somewhat less strong than in Germany, but also in the Netherlands just laying off people like you see in US movies simply is not possible.
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epyllion
Sellaband addict in waiting
Posts: 4
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Post by epyllion on Feb 24, 2010 14:54:23 GMT
If anything - this should make you feel even MORE confident with your investments. Because, apparently a bankruptcy can't even affect your parts.
Let's wait and see what happens once the site re-opens "today" or "tomorrow". I suppose we'll keep on paying our bills on our end to produce our cd, and hope that we end up getting the money!
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Post by bpmessenger on Feb 24, 2010 15:03:46 GMT
Hey all. First off Lu, good job getting the REAL forums back, i remember these (much better than the sab ones). Anyway, i think a Munich sellabration is a bit premature especially since i feel like these guys owe us (and probably you guys a ton of stuff (ps why wont these boards let me curse!)). To be totally honest, i always felt there was something fishy with the accounting for our revenue and the huge "lag" on payments and not getting producer statements per the contract, as well as mechanical royalty payouts, and our figures just being soooo low. I mean honestly who knows what's been going on, though i'd love to get a little audit on the books to see what is legit and recalculate everything. I find it fascinating - especially since we made at least 24k this year from our first album and 3k from our SAB album.. something just doesn't add up to me (unless AY is THAT bad). I just feel totally let down by SAB, it started as a great concept, but it got too big for its shoes too fast and i agree with the above statements, NO promotional budget - though it said in our contracts they would promote and license, but rather simply just put it to the orchard to take 15 percent and pay out quarterly while we could have done cd baby for monthly payments and 9 percent cut and get it to the SAME places, and too many artists hitting 50k who because of the "demographic phenomenon". As far as quailty control and producing the album, it is all taken care of in the 50k budget, trust me we know, a significant chunk comes out for shipping and duplication - alll taken care of in the 50k budget (not SAB's pocket - but rather the artist/believers our 50k turned into 27k for recording since 5k was "A&R? " 3k was "mechanicals which we havent seen any of" and the difference postage and duplication), so the the phenomenon isnt the reason they went down the tubes in my opinion. quality control wouldnt have made them more money (fact is more artists would make more money assuming they they would have actually promoted the ones that have a viable chance at success that could have helped them make some cash..).. Its a TOTAL shame they got rid of things like sellabration, London calling, etc (arenafest was a monster kick in our teeth as you can imagine) and things that made it more than just a website for an escrow company... What can i say... we expected more... artists who hit 50 are subject to the "SAB GRAVEYARD", which i will take credit for that phrase hah..we signed a 5 year deal with SAB on the grounds that they had big plans to earn their 10 percent and help us such as arenafest etc, but with those plans falling through and them simply becoming a website who takes a cut of our income to do nothing for us going forward we would have done it differently...we were TOTALLY overlooked once we hit 50, arenafest was promised then.. nothing... we got no assistance to get management, shows, tours, booking, promotions, ANYTHING, pretty much its was us sitting around doing it ourselves... you think it would have been made up to us after our name was "tarnished" a bit after releasing it in billboard we were playing this big thing that never happened...
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garystorm
Sellaband addict in waiting
Posts: 3
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Post by garystorm on Feb 24, 2010 15:07:05 GMT
I'm not surprised SAB went bankrupt. It was about to happen 2 years ago then they got the $5 million investment to keep them going. There are so many more things I could mention with our dealings with Sellaband which showed how inept they were in execution, understanding and communication. You won't believe what happened with Clemence even if I told you..... Sellaband got royally stuffed by her because they didn't do their own due diligence on who owned what songs of hers). Now maybe you will understand the frustrations that Mandyleigh and some other artists (alot of the artists even got together to send a group email to SAB to buck their idea's up in 2008). I'm surprised SAB have been bought to be honest. Especially this quickly (It normally takes alot longer to find investors, evaluate them and wade through all the legal stuff to sort out and sign). Would it be possible that it's some major creditor who has taken over to see how they can get their money back? We met some great people in Holland and the BALLS will always be burned in our minds It's a pity SAB didn't have a clue and were full of crap.
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Post by alex joe marczak on Feb 24, 2010 15:18:49 GMT
Well, it's a pity. And I pulled the plug on our account about a week or so ago, and I'm disappointed for our believers that I didn't do it earlier. Hindsight is great I suppose.
As long as they bring the site up long enough for people to retrieve their money, then I think we can draw a line under it. The big issues will be the existing recording artists (feeling sorry for Katie, Tim, Aly and the rest) and to try and get all your CDs back.
Presumably Tiff and Radius got all their funds already?
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Post by Lucretia on Feb 24, 2010 15:34:53 GMT
Well, it's a pity. And I pulled the plug on our account about a week or so ago, and I'm disappointed for our believers that I didn't do it earlier. Hindsight is great I suppose. You may have pulled the plug but Sellaband hadn't. The Mount Fabric account had joined the realms of the departed-but-still-there so unless people had removed their parts manually AND requested a payout as well, the money was still in Sellaband's system. And tbh I'd say there's no guarantee that even if a payout request went through after you pulled the plug that the payout has actually happened. Although having said that it's only fair to say that when I dragged all but a handful of parts worth of balance off my account directly after my Feb hatchet day post, amazingly the money was in my Paypal account within 24hrs. Oh and Gary, BALLS bring back memories for sure.
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garystorm
Sellaband addict in waiting
Posts: 3
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Post by garystorm on Feb 24, 2010 16:08:50 GMT
I feel sorry for BPM, Mandyleigh and the other artists I know of who were spun lines by SAB and got sucked in, hook, line and sinker. What happens to their contracts now? SAB always said they could cancel them if SAB didn't live up to their word. Hope that still stands.
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Post by bpmessenger on Feb 24, 2010 16:14:18 GMT
I feel sorry for BPM, Mandyleigh and the other artists I know of who were spun lines by SAB and got sucked in, hook, line and sinker. What happens to their contracts now? SAB always said they could cancel them if SAB didn't live up to their word. Hope that still stands. We shall see...
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Post by bpmessenger on Feb 24, 2010 17:12:31 GMT
honestly - i would like out of our sab contracts.. we would be more than happy to work with the new company for some new contract if they want to adjust the terms and idk, actually DO something to make it up to us for the wasted time and empty promises
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Post by johncfraser on Feb 24, 2010 17:16:37 GMT
Is it just me or...? How can I as an artist explain to all the people I convinced to invest in me through Sellaband.com that Sellaband is bankrupt one day, and the other day explain them that "all is good" and "you can invest your money again". I just don't see how to do this... Sellaband's bankruptcy was such a big issue in yesterday's news I doubt if they'll ever come over it again....
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shale
Sellaband addict in waiting
Well what do you know?
Posts: 16
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Post by shale on Feb 24, 2010 17:39:34 GMT
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Utterly B Groovy
Somewhat Sellaband addicted
He Moves And He Grooves But He Don't Got Hooves
Posts: 468
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Post by Utterly B Groovy on Feb 24, 2010 17:43:08 GMT
... What happens to their contracts now? SAB always said they could cancel them if SAB didn't live up to their word. Hope that still stands. I guess it would be hard to argue that going bankrupt isn't failing to live up to your contract - let alone a $50K artist failing to place a track from their SAB album on a well known UK tv show because the tracks hadn't even been registered! [shakes head] I would certainly hope that any new owners realise that to have any hope whatsoever of getting this kite in the air again they're gonnna have to spend some quality time untangling the string (see wot I did there ... kite ... string!) and honouring the previous contracts should come top of that list ... here's hoping. I'll defo hang around and see how it pans out. If the new owners can get it right it _still_ has the capability to be great. Of course, it can also continue to be second rate ... but you'd have to be a first class idiot to buy it and not change the way it works! UBG
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