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2600 Distributor Withholds Money, Magazine's Future In Limbo
First time accepted submitter themusicgod1 (241799) writes According to 2600, their distributor (Previously known as "Source Interlink", now recently renamed to "TEN: The Enthusiast Network") has decided to consolidate its resources and is keeping the money retailers paid for the last two issues of the quarterly magazine. 2600, in the meanwhile, is still busy trying to organize the upcoming HOPE X conference. However, according to the link: "In the worst case scenario, being ripped off at this level would make it almost impossible for us to continue publishing. We would have to make a lot of painful choices and cut back on things for no reason other than some outside company's mismanagement. Our readers have supported both our print and digital publications and we've been doing quite well overall."
Note: As it says at the linked explanation, 2600 is not a charity, and they're not seeking donations -- but they would like you to buy the magazine (in print or Kindle form), and to attend the upcoming HOPE X conference. (I wish I could make this year's HOPE but can't; as conferences go, HOPE is a wildly good bargain.)
Has anyone pointed out to the distributor precisely who the target audience for the publication is?
Next week on pastebin: All of their dirty laundry.
I am surprised a magazine devoted to the original Atari video game console is still going
In other words, they tried to Wal-Mart strongarm their distributors/vendors, and when the biggest one said "fuck you" and went elsewhere, their business imploded. And so an uber-distributer middleman dies. So sad.
Well, then perhaps the advertisers in their magazines should be aware that they are stealing from or attempting to steal from 2600 magazine. Sure it is a hacker magazine, but if they will steal from hackers, they will surely rip off the automotive enthusiasts.
2600 should file claims immediately both civil and criminal. Keeping about $100,000 is enough to get big agencies interested and it is certainly not legal to spin off the "bad" parts to a "bankrupt" entity merely to avoid paying the bills.
Should be fun to watch.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
Advertisers: not so much. In fact, the 2600 marketplace section (2 pages at the back of the magazine) is free, and only available to subscribers. There is no paid advertising in 2600 Magazine.
Two basic problems.
(1) such lawsuits are expensive to mount, if 2600 is hurting for 100k in the first place, chances are filing a civil suit would hurt them pretty badly too... which brings us to...
(2) while slimy, this is a legal practice. If you do the paperwork right you can even buy a company, transfer your debt to them, then split them off again. Poof your debt is gone and some other company is ruined. So if 2600 DID file a lawsuit, their chances of winning would be slime unless their distributer messed up the paperwork.
Well, then perhaps the advertisers in their magazines should be aware that they are stealing from or attempting to steal from 2600 magazine. Sure it is a hacker magazine, but if they will steal from hackers, they will surely rip off the automotive enthusiasts.
2600 should file claims immediately both civil and criminal. Keeping about $100,000 is enough to get big agencies interested and it is certainly not legal to spin off the "bad" parts to a "bankrupt" entity merely to avoid paying the bills.
Should be fun to watch.
You're assuming bankruptcy law has anything to do with common sense. Back in the 90s I went and got a pager and paid for 1yr of service up front. The company literally went out of business the next day. I got to use the pager for about a week before it just died and there was no service, and no-where to call. I got ripped off.
2 or 3 years later I got a notice from a collections company. Another company had bought my pager providers "Assets" and claimed that I had never canceled my service, it auto renewed every year, and I owned them for 3 years of service. I'm the type that will spend $1000 to force you to give me the $100 you owe me, it's the principle in my mind. I immediately requested my money back for the entire service. I'll skip all of the details but after a year and a half I'd wasted a lot of money and the ruling was that this company had bought the "Assets" of the previous one, so they had no obligations to pay me back, but I didn't own on the auto-renewed service because there was no way for me to cancel since the company was out of buisness.
Even if 2600 had standing, and I have no idea, by the time they get this resolved they'll be bankrupt.
"we've been doing quite well overall."
Except for the bit where your business had little cash reserves, and apparently no line of credit?
2600 is a business with plenty of history and should have lots of proof they're doing OK, if that is in fact the case. Getting a line of credit to make up for the lost issue or two shouldn't remotely be a problem...which means one of three things: they're not doing "quite well", they're incompetent, or they are, in fact, trying to take advantage of the community.
Please help metamoderate.
The 2600 editors will probably publish photographs of the payphone outside the publishing companies office in their next issue! The publisher had better beware!!!
Also, there will probably be a construction article that says to "connect a 'red-violet-brown' resistor to the long lead of the LED."
And maybe a debug script for an MS-DOS virus.
All in all, a veritable threat.
20 years ago, a department store chain called Crowley's in the midwest went out of business. They did so right after Christmas, refusing to honor all the gift cards people bought, claiming they were "contracts" now null and void.
They sold all those gift cards knowing they were going out of business. Nobody went to jail. My dad got ripped off for $200 for a gift card he bought for my grandma.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I actually worked for TEN up until ~May. The 'legal' side of things is that Source Interlink was a single company. It then split into Source Interlink Distribution (whom owes 2600 money and does/did the distribution for magazines) and Source Interlink Media (who owns a ton of magazines).
SID lost the Time Mag deal and decided to close its doors. Sadly, 2600 is now needing to extract blood from a (dead) stone. SIM underwent some major internal upheaval and renamed themselves to TEN and laid off a ton of people.
At this point, the people 2600 needs to talk to are part of a company that is closing/closed. I dont know what their options are as IANAL, but I think they're going after a company that has nothing to do with the distribution of their magazine and therefore nothing to do with said profits. This happens all the time when companies go under and its sad. My heart goes out to 2600, as I was an avid reader back in my high school days of learning to phreak.
Bankruptcy isn't a free-for-all, though. Judges (at least in the US) don't usually look kindly on blatant and obvious attempts to shirk debt. I suspect the publisher is on its last legs, though (most magazines are these days). If that's the case, this may not be some slimy legal hack, but genuinely the only way for a portion of the published magazines to keep going. It's still a bit odd, though, as "accounts payable" are quite high on the totem pole in bankruptcy proceedings (I forget whether AP or salary due is at the top, but both come before any interest by owners or investors).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This is 2600. Someone needs to simply publish a lot of Executive information as well as public facing IP addresses and the community will fix it for them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
949-705-3100
Ask why they have not paid 2600 yet.