Sean,
Obviously I meant that you and Bruce were right about the moral
obligations of people involved in this chain of events to make
appropriate restitution.
It seems to me that at this point the only person who has a right to
"out" the name of a seller/auctioneer/trader who has refused to refund
someone's money prior to the resolution of the court cases is the person
who bought the fake from that particular seller. If anyone else were to
give out names publicly in print, they would be opening themselves up to
a defamation lawsuit, so I didn't figure Bruce was going to answer your
question by coughing up names as you insisted he should be doing.
But your question clearly indicated that the reason you wanted to know
the names of people who have not refunded money at this point would be
to vilify and condemn them -- and without knowing all the details of
each individual transaction, that would be unfair and wrong. That's why
I started talking about "extenuating circumstances". Like I said, if
someone made a $4,000 commission on a sale of a $20,000 fake, then at
the most that person is ethically obligated to reimburse only the $4,000
he made on the deal, not the entire $20,000 that was paid.
And if we table the ethical obligations for a moment, legally, a court
would be unlikely to order the repayment of even the $4,000 commission
if the person could demonstrate that they knew nothing about the poster
being fake and sold it "as is" with no warranty. The law recognizes and
upholds the concept of "buyer beware" in this country. It's different in
Europe and most other places. But in America we operate on a form of
pirate capitalism that says "unless you can actually prove to a jury
that somebody knowingly and deliberated lied to you with malice
aforethought about a product, they are not responsible for your losses
or damages."
Going back to moral obligations, what about the probability that the
person who got the bulk of the $20,000 may well have paid someone else
$20,000 for it when he bought it? So if he didn't know it was a fake
when he paid good money for it and then resold it in good faith (and has
since spent that money believing it was legally his and he was entitled
to spend it), why should he now be on the hook to take *two* separate
$20,000 hits -- the first when he bought the fake and the second when he
has to repay money from the subsequent sale which he has already spent?
Perhaps morally he should be willing to repay the $20,000 he got from
the sale and then take his chances on maybe getting something back from
the court someday, but why should he be the only one to have to bear the
whole burden? Why shouldn't the last buyer also have to wait on the
court reparations? So, it is perfectly correct for people in this
situation to invite others involved to join them in the lawsuits and let
the courts decide who gets what of anything that may or may not be
recovered.
-- JR
Sean Linkenback wrote:
JR,
I don't understand - both Bruce and I are right about what? I never
asked if the "unknowing middlemen" had enough funds available to
refund or any other question that you answered.
My question was a direct one if Bruce had actual firsthand knowledge
of these"unknowing middlemen" not refunding money of customers as he
claimed in his message or if he is just further making waves while
seemingly trying to promote himself as the only safe place to shop.
It's not a right or wrong question, it's a yes or no question which so
far he hasn't answered.
----- Original Message -----
*From:* James Richard <mailto:jrl...@mediabearonline.com>
*To:* Sean Linkenback <mailto:slinkenb...@comcast.net>
*Cc:* MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
<mailto:MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU>
*Sent:* Monday, September 07, 2009 4:44 AM
*Subject:* Re: [MOPO] Bruce's latest information on the fakes
Sean,
In theory, both you and Bruce are right. From a purely moral and
ethical standpoint the "unknowing middlemen" should have to
reimburse their customers. But what about practical matters? How
many of those "middlemen" have $20,000 or $30,000 or more free
cash laying around that they can hand over in reparations? Not
many, would be my guess, particularly in the current economic
situation. These people may want to refund the money, but they
simply may not be able to.
Also consider what their situation is if they were truly innocent
"middlemen"... like someone selling on consignment. They may have
been given $20,000 for the fake, but they only made a 10% or 20%
commission on the deal... maybe $2,000 to $4,000 bucks. They
passed the bulk of the $20,000 on to whomever they got the poster
from in the first place. Since they didn't get to keep the whole
$20,000 in the first place, why should they have to cough up the
whole $20,000 to pay back the last buyer in the chain?
And then there's the daisy chain effect. How many times did a
particular fake change hands among innocent buyers and sellers
before the highly-skilled fraud was detected? Maybe for some of
these fakes there is a long change of multiple sales and trades
involving many people who got, exchanged and spent money generated
from the sale of the fake and none of them knew it was fake (and
most of whom do not have the money to repay... and who do they
repay it to, anyway? That's where the courts come in -- they have
to figure out who owes what to whom and how much guilt or
innocence each link in the chain contained).
In other words, it's a royal mess. And chances are very little
will ever be recovered or repaid on most of these fakes. Those who
bought them from a well-heeled auction house like Heritage who
could afford to refund the money (and who probably had an
insurance company helping them out on that) are the lucky ones.
Many of the others will ever get much if any of their money back,
regardless of the outcome of court cases.
The scary thing is that, in many of the court cases, there may be
legal decisions which don't favor the buyers at all. After all,
except for a couple of upscale dealers/auctioneers, these posters
were sold "as is". They did not come with a guarantee of anything
and legally most of the sellers are probably not libel according
to the letter of the law.
This is why the whole fake thing has to be stopped now, or at
least serious efforts made to reign it in. The fakes have already
done tremendous damage and we probably haven't seen the end of
most of the chains of destruction yet. Sellers of high-end posters
are simply going to have to bite the bullet, get with a couple of
the recognized experts in the field (we all know who they are) and
arrange a viable "opinion of authenticity" process which they can
use in the future to reasonably safely sell the very expensive
type of posters in future.
Anyone who thinks this hobby-industry can go back to doing
business with the very expensive items the way it was done in the
past with the same kind of "of course it's authentic" attitude is
kidding themselves. Clearly the mere reputation of the seller
isn't going to be enough anymore.
-- JR
Sean Linkenback wrote:
Hi Bruce,
someone just pointed out your latest club email to me and I read
one passage with a lot of interest:
"It seems that some of those who unknowingly sold some of these
as middlemen are taking the odd position that they have no
liability in this, and that they want the people they unknowingly
cheated to join them in lawsuits against those they obtained the
fakes from, and that they won't be refunding those they
unknowingly cheated."
Do you have any actual firsthand knowledge of this happening? If
so, isn't this one of the things that should be "outed" so that
people can know do stay away from any middlemen who deny
responsibility/liability. You talked before about how
disappointed you were that people might be withholding this sort
of information, are you now doing the same?
And if anyone who is interested in this subject hasn't read
Bruce's new club message, I encourage you to do so, as it
contains a nice summary of many of the events.
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