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rates. In addition Lulu, unlike most publishers, does not accept
returns of unsold books from bookstores. These facts may make it
difficult for independent content creators to have their content
carried in web stores, though they're not an issue for online sites
like Amazon.com
Finally, the imposition and need by Lulu for an ISBN and UPC number is
not only contradictory as general business practice but forces an
independent content creator, be it a filmmaker, author or artists to
additional unnecessary and unwelcome costs. Despite being treated with
respect and having good customer service with fast responses, overall,
it is simply not viable for an Indy content creator to sign up with
Lulu, due to the high overhead costs and being unfairly billed for
every sales transaction. Today, according to Douglas this practice is
also illegal, since vanity presses fall under very specific
conditions and must adhere to standardized guidelines. (33) As seen,
Lulu is nothing more than a vanity press par excellence, and any
independent artists should look elsewhere.
Jaman
(http://www.jaman.com)
Jaman operates under the website name jaman.com. Under the seemingly
friendly and nicely designed website our research discovered numerous
problems (some, very serious) associated with this company. In Jaman's
self-described »About Us page there are several unsubstantiated
claims, such as being the world's largest online libraries of feature
films and documentaries, (34) and providing filmmakers and studios a
secure way to market films. (34 The latter is nothing more than an
obvious slogan, since there is no evidence too back up this claim.
Such statements should prompt anyone to be skeptical, especially when
it comes to film distribution and digital rights management.
Our testers then used the application form and submitted an
independent film for submission to Jaman.com. Their own initial claim
proved to be immediately troublesome:
If you are an independent filmmaker and would like to distribute your
film through the Jaman service, please fill out the form below and we
will contact you as soon as possible. (34)
It took two (!) months to get a response, and after another three
weeks we received an information package, which we completed and sent
back to Jaman. Our legal team had already highlighted numerous legal
problems in Jaman's Terms of Service and in the agreement filmmaker's
are supposed to sign when submitting a film. As Berger points out, any
internet company that offers internet distribution of independent
intellectual property must offer a maximum of protection of a
producer's Intellectual property rights, (35) which Jaman does not
do: Jaman does not guarantee any confidentiality with respect to any
submission. (34) What is more, is that essentially any filmmaker
submitting her or his film signs over all rights to Jaman. Furthermore:
Jaman MAKES NO WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT THE
ACCURACY OR
COMPLETENESS OF THIS SITE'S CONTENT OR THE CONTENT OF ANY SITES
LINKED
TO THIS SITE AND ASSUMES NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY (I)
ERRORS, MISTAKES, OR INACCURACIES OF CONTENT. (34)
What follows here is that Jaman can essentially do anything they want
with content submitted by a producer and filmmaker, AND can even make
misrepresentations, changes and alterations to a film, if chosen to do
so. There is nothing in the terms of use to protect an independent
filmmaker or producer, which is not only questionable, but also even
unlawful by today's intellectual property laws.
Apart from these legal pitfalls, several exhaustive price comparisons
were made between films listed on Jaman and Amazon. It turned out that
over 80% of all titles on Jaman are at minimum $2-3 MORE EXPENSIVE
than Amazon. In addition, the shipping rates for DVDs were overpriced,
and the net sale price of a digital download is also higher than
Amazon. What is more is that independent producers, get even less of
all net profit than if they were to self-distribute their products, on
Amazon, for example. Pascale notes: The profit margin for independent
producers selling on Jaman is a maximum of 15% of all net sales; this
is terrible. And, what is worse, a producer has no way of controlling
how many units are sold, since Jaman, does not offer transparent
accounting tools. (36)
Next to these issues, we found out, how Jaman has gone about
falsifying and manipulating information on the Internet. Jaman hires
people to manipulate blogs and chat rooms to maintain that despite
obvious share losses and layoffs, all is well. Jaman management uses
bribes to pay off operators of blogs, news feeds and websites to gain
control over general public opinion. The FBI is currently
investigating a case initiated by the California DA's office against
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who received donations from an
offshore account linked to Jaman. Evidently Jaman donated $1.3 million
to the Wikimedia Foundation, the operator of Wikipedia, but forgot
to file taxes on it in 2007, as publicly accessible court filings
reveal (37). Jaman's Wikipedia entry reads:
Jaman is a company that offers view on demand of media on the
Internet. It allows viewing on a variety of platforms via a
downloadable platform. It specializes in foreign films. [n]. It also
offers movies and TV shows through TiVo.[n] It was founded by Gaurav
Dhillon, who was the Chief Executive Officer of Informatica (NASDAQ:
INFA), a Silicon Valley company that he co-founded in 1992. (38)
Any such entry on Wikipedia, even as »stub would be immediately
deleted by Wikipedia, since: Criteria for speedy deletion specify the
limited cases where administrators may delete Wikipedia pages or media
without discussion, (38) which Wikipedia usually does. Therefore, any
other such listing by an individual , company or corporation would
have been deleted by Wikipedia, under their own so-called speedy
deletion policy. As Anderson has previously pointed out the
Wikipedia philosophy is not »free knowledge for free minds,' but free
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