You don't get my point, I never said to give up, I said that there is a better way to deal with this kind of thing than jumping right to the lawsuits.
They say that they want to pay you, but they want to cut your pay for the future. Taking a pay cut isn't that bad if it means you still get paid. (as opposed to not getting paid at all). Of course it still sucks to be getting less money than before, and if it can be avoided, by all means avoid it, but in any case it will ALWAYS be better than having no income at all.
I like your solution though, but I wouldn't trade cash for UGO shares myself.
If they're in such dire straits, what the hell were they doing acquiring Bla-bla? They should have used that cash to pay their affiliates.
You don't necessarily have to dish out actual money when making acquisitions. You can simply trade shares, or in a cse such as this, it is possible that UGO took over any debt bla-bla had incurred.
There probably was a cash transaction as well, but most acquisitions are not cash-based.
This might be seen as a troll... but it needs to be said.
One thing I noticed right away is that almost everyone says "call your lawyer" or "lawsuit" right away, without even looking at the other side of the medal.
Sure, you have a signed agreement that says "UGO will pay me this much", but you know what? UGO can't pay you that much and taking them to court is not going to change that.
Now, if you think that you are getting screwed on this, why not talk to the people at UGO? I'm sure they have people who will be able to explain to you pretty simply why they issued this new contract (although it's pretty obvious they have really small bank accounts by now) and what the plans are for the network as a whole.
When you signed that contract and UGO started hosting your site, you became business partners. When you have a conflict don't take it right to the legal system; talk it out, see what's going on and then decide what you are going to do about it.
UGO isn't your enemy in this case, and it's much more diplomatic to give them a call and talk it over than to have your lawyer do it.
You're in the same boat as UGO, if they get screwed, you're going to get screwed too in the long run.
Lawsuits are not the answer to everything, although I'm sure people who go on Judge Judy would say otherwise.
You could refuse to sign the new contract and sue for this year's money owed. Odds are you wouldn't get much for your effort and you'd have to pay lawyers fees. You could sign the contract, take the money from January and February and then tell UGO to take a hike. Or you could not sign the contract, not sue, tell UGO to take a hike and hope to get somthing out of them if they go bankrupt.
You could sign the contract, take a paycut and be grateful you still get revenue for running a webpage as opposed to everyone who lost out in the recent bankruptcies.
You'd probably also be better off asking the people at UGO what their (long term) future is looking like before committing to any new long term contract.
This definitely seems pretty unfair, but have you talked to the people at UGO about it? It is definitely a bad idea to sign that and lose your rights to money you're entitled to, but it might also be a good idea and ride out the hard times and hope for a better future.
It will do you no good to sue, get the money and then UGO goes out of business if you can take a paycut and possibly see UGO's situation turn around. I can see you saying "Yeah, right, that's going to happen", but maybe having a better idea of UGO's long term business plan would help you make a decision.
Keep in mind I know that pretty much every other company like UGO is out of business (efront, gamefan, etc), but I also don't know UGO's business model so it'd be pretty presumptuous to say they're screwed.
So far it has seemed like Nokia would gamble on 3G making people switch phones and convergence in PDAs and phones as their future market, but actually a console would make a lot of sense as an alternative revenue stream.
3G enabled consoles anyone? I'm pretty sure they'd be able to make something cool with that!
Wireless is a tricky area as well, although with a LOT of money it would be possible to jump in.
The biggest problem is to compare the different standards of wireless communication, and which one is worth it.
If you got a license for 2G (second generation) now, you'd already be a bit behind, however a 2.5G standard (56Kbps - 384 kbps)is still lacking compared to the 3G that the big companies are going to be coming out with shortly (with data rates of around 2mbps).
The catch of 3G? a huge initial investment, and a huge licensing fee for the standard. And if you're looking for investors you might have a hard time as well, since the European Telcos who have bought 3G licenses have all had a significant loss of investors (investors do not trust that 3G will be worth what they are paying for these licenses, or at least not for a long time).
Maybe looking into some of the better 2.5G wireless standards (cdma2000, GPRS or even better, EDGE) would be a good idea right now; not everyone is going to have access to 3G, or possibly becoming a big name in 3G - if you have the funds..
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You don't get my point, I never said to give up, I said that there is a better way to deal with this kind of thing than jumping right to the lawsuits.
They say that they want to pay you, but they want to cut your pay for the future. Taking a pay cut isn't that bad if it means you still get paid. (as opposed to not getting paid at all). Of course it still sucks to be getting less money than before, and if it can be avoided, by all means avoid it, but in any case it will ALWAYS be better than having no income at all.
I like your solution though, but I wouldn't trade cash for UGO shares myself.
Lawsuits don't fix everything!
-PYves
If they're in such dire straits, what the hell were they doing acquiring Bla-bla? They should have used that cash to pay their affiliates.
You don't necessarily have to dish out actual money when making acquisitions. You can simply trade shares, or in a cse such as this, it is possible that UGO took over any debt bla-bla had incurred.
There probably was a cash transaction as well, but most acquisitions are not cash-based.
-PYves
This might be seen as a troll... but it needs to be said.
One thing I noticed right away is that almost everyone says "call your lawyer" or "lawsuit" right away, without even looking at the other side of the medal.
Sure, you have a signed agreement that says "UGO will pay me this much", but you know what? UGO can't pay you that much and taking them to court is not going to change that.
Now, if you think that you are getting screwed on this, why not talk to the people at UGO? I'm sure they have people who will be able to explain to you pretty simply why they issued this new contract (although it's pretty obvious they have really small bank accounts by now) and what the plans are for the network as a whole.
When you signed that contract and UGO started hosting your site, you became business partners. When you have a conflict don't take it right to the legal system; talk it out, see what's going on and then decide what you are going to do about it.
UGO isn't your enemy in this case, and it's much more diplomatic to give them a call and talk it over than to have your lawyer do it.
You're in the same boat as UGO, if they get screwed, you're going to get screwed too in the long run.
Lawsuits are not the answer to everything, although I'm sure people who go on Judge Judy would say otherwise.
-PYves
You could refuse to sign the new contract and sue for this year's money owed. Odds are you wouldn't get much for your effort and you'd have to pay lawyers fees. You could sign the contract, take the money from January and February and then tell UGO to take a hike. Or you could not sign the contract, not sue, tell UGO to take a hike and hope to get somthing out of them if they go bankrupt.
You could sign the contract, take a paycut and be grateful you still get revenue for running a webpage as opposed to everyone who lost out in the recent bankruptcies.
You'd probably also be better off asking the people at UGO what their (long term) future is looking like before committing to any new long term contract.
-PYves
This definitely seems pretty unfair, but have you talked to the people at UGO about it? It is definitely a bad idea to sign that and lose your rights to money you're entitled to, but it might also be a good idea and ride out the hard times and hope for a better future.
It will do you no good to sue, get the money and then UGO goes out of business if you can take a paycut and possibly see UGO's situation turn around. I can see you saying "Yeah, right, that's going to happen", but maybe having a better idea of UGO's long term business plan would help you make a decision.
Keep in mind I know that pretty much every other company like UGO is out of business (efront, gamefan, etc), but I also don't know UGO's business model so it'd be pretty presumptuous to say they're screwed.
-PYves
3G enabled consoles anyone? I'm pretty sure they'd be able to make something cool with that!
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Wireless is a tricky area as well, although with a LOT of money it would be possible to jump in. The biggest problem is to compare the different standards of wireless communication, and which one is worth it. If you got a license for 2G (second generation) now, you'd already be a bit behind, however a 2.5G standard (56Kbps - 384 kbps)is still lacking compared to the 3G that the big companies are going to be coming out with shortly (with data rates of around 2mbps). The catch of 3G? a huge initial investment, and a huge licensing fee for the standard. And if you're looking for investors you might have a hard time as well, since the European Telcos who have bought 3G licenses have all had a significant loss of investors (investors do not trust that 3G will be worth what they are paying for these licenses, or at least not for a long time). Maybe looking into some of the better 2.5G wireless standards (cdma2000, GPRS or even better, EDGE) would be a good idea right now; not everyone is going to have access to 3G, or possibly becoming a big name in 3G - if you have the funds..