Cammcal,

You have proven my point because you have refused several times to answer a basic question that is tied to the point I’ve been making.

Here is the question again that you refuse to answer because it defeats whatever point you are trying to make.

Question:

“Do you not think this is fair? Donators give James money to go make a movie, and James lets those donators stream/watch it at no additional charge?”

Either you think it is “fair” or you think it is “unfair.” Which is it, or do you still refuse to answer it? By your refusal to answer this question that means you admit you are wrong and that your position has no merit.

John Russell,

Your response argument to me is a legality argument. And my argument is NOT a legality argument. Therefore, you are missing my point.

My argument is more of a morality argument. In that I think it is very FAIR for me to say that James asked people to give him free money to go make a movie. And thus I think it is very FAIR and OKAY for those same people to ask James to let them watch this movie at no charge since they paid to get it made.

Here my argument is simpler:

James = Free movie and keeps all profits and merch.
Donators = Watch movie at no charge

I’m not saying I’m legally owed anything. But notwithstanding my above argument. I do think some misleading statements were made in order to obtain donations. I think it was bad taste to keep the fact this movie was pay-per-view a secret from the donation requests. And thing it’s very bad taste to get free money to make a movie, and then charge those same donators to watch it. Also, after making a TON of videos claiming to thank all the fans for making this movie possible.

The donators gave James a free movie he asked them for. Therefore it’s fair for those same donators to ask James for a viewing of the movie at no charge.

I will agree asking for free money to make a money making piece of media is sleazy and it sucks you dont get a thing for giving money.

John Russell,

I donated for the movie before the Indiegogo thing was even mentioned. I believe I had posted a link to the video. But James made a video asking for movie donations. Again this was BEFORE Indiegogo. James stated that ALL of his videos were ad based and free to watch, etc. Then James asked for donations to make his movie.

So that is when I donated because it made sense James was asking for donations to make his movie because he just got done saying ALL of his videos are ad based. I can only go by what is presented and how it is presented, I can’t read minds of peoples intentions.

My position isn’t looking for a return on my donation. I just think there were misleading statements tied to the donation request that I participated in. I took James statements to mean he needed donations for the movie because ALL of his videos are ad based and that a “movie” is a lot bigger project than a 10 minute video, because James would be showing his “movie” for free viewing supported by advertisements.

The other issue I have isn’t a legality issue, but maybe more of a moral issue. In that I think it is sleazy to charge the donators to watch the movie they funded to get made. Like I had said before, James is the only one I know of to do this with regards to getting donations to make a movie. I probably wouldn’t have had any problems with the donation thing if James had sent out links or codes to his donators to let them view the movie without charge. If I was in James position, I wouldn’t be charging my movie donators to watch the movie they funded.

I don’t think James will be successful in his 2nd “give me money to make a movie” donation request unless he changes the problems I’ve mentioned. I believe James will probably change it up the 2nd time like how I mentioned should have been done the first time.

Your very true to your cause Colt. Very admirable. We will just have to agree to disagree. Sorry some comments i made were condescending but i just get riled up with this stuff. I agree this whole situation is greasy, but in my mind ive always thought these kickstarter donation things were hokey. My whole argument is you should not have expected a return on your donation. But obviously you had faith in the purity of cinemassacre and their usual commitment to fans. Maybe im being like the guy saying girls should dress down if they dont wanna be sexually harrased. Maybe your being too ideallistic about good old James. I dont know. All i know is im sorry your AVGN relantionship is forever tainted.

John Russell,

You can represent the side you want. And I’ll represent the side I want. There have been several comments here from other donators upset about James charging them to watch the AVGN Movie that they donated to help get made. You won’t admit this, But James is the ONLY one to do this. It is very abnormal and I’ve never seen it done by anyone else out crowd-funding for a movie.

Even though you somewhat admit that James made some misleading statements in his early donation request videos. You can’t say that I should have theoretically been able read his mind or something on what he was going to do based on watching those early videos. As the ONLY thing I could take away from those early AVGN donation request videos was that James stated that all of his videos were ad based, and that James wanted to make a really long ad based video called the “AVGN movie” and needed donations for that. That is pretty much what I take away from watching those early videos that I relied on to decide to make a couple of donations for the AVGN Movie. I had also previously donated in the past for the regular AVGN videos. If you had watched those early videos and didn’t know about the AVGN movie being charged to watch, then you too would have thought the same thing as me at the time that the AVGN Movie would have been an ad based video.

I take your “But if you start using your noggin a little bit” comment to only mean “Hindsight is 20/20”.

Oh, and you need to quit calling me a “tightass”. I’ve made multiple donations to James over the years. Two donations for the AVGN movie, and at least two donations prior to that for the regular AVGN videos. So I’ve given more than my fair share sir.

If you were to call anyone here a “tightass”, you should direct that towards James. Because let me ask you a question that you will refuse to answer. Okay, here is the question:

What is the point of James charging all of his AVGN movie donators to stream the movie online even though they were the ones who paid for the movie to get made?

My answer is it’s called taking advantage of your donators who probably don’t know any better.

Buddy enough. Regardless of what James ever said, the definition of a donation stands. You should have known better because you donated. You didnt purchase and you didnt invest. I knew that asking for donations to make a full length movie was sketchy. I have little to no experience in making movies and running a website and even i knew he would have to charge for it. It was naive of you to think different REGARDLESS of what james said. But if you wanna get super into what he said we can point out that not once did he say “you will get to watch this movie for free” he did say “I like to keep everything on the site free.” He did not he WILL. He said he would LIKE. But if you start using your noggin a little bit, youll realize how much of an endeavor a movie is and putting a movie for streaming online is. Also, he asked for 1$ a person. So it was all you who donated a whole lot more. (how much did you donate anyway. Never said once so far i dont think)

If i read or saw him say “donate 6 bux and you will for sure get a free rental” i would have. But he never did so i waited until i knew my money would benefit me directly without any of this butt hurt crap. Get over and dont be such a tight ass.

In that donation request video, you will see Bait and switch proof that his donation request video was for an advertisement based movie as the video “advertisements” were the only thing mentioned there. Show me where in that video that it says anything about a “Pay-per-view” in that video? As people keep ignoring that video for some reason as it supports my position. The reason why I donated is because James pretty much said the AVGN Movie would be supported by advertisements and by donations.

Cammcal,

I’ve said this many times. I didn’t participate in Indiegogo. I donated for the movie before that existed.

James made videos here asking for movie donations. His reasons were misleading, because he stated that ALL of his videos are advertisement based supported by advertisement views and by donations. But that he was doing a movie that would be a “long video” and needed donations. It made sense to me that he needed help to make a very long video called the “AVGN Movie” which would be advertisement based. So I donated based off of that donation request video.

I’ll post this again:

Check out this video at “3:07″ http://cinemassacre.com/2011/08/16/accepting-donations-for-avgn-movie/.

James says: “I like to keep everything on the site free. All of the videos with the exception of the DVD’s of course. You know you have the option to buy them. But that’s why you see advertisements. So that all of the money come from outside sources. So I can keep the website free for the regular users. But the fact is I need money to make the movie. And that’s kind of like a whole new thing. So donate what you can. Like theoretically if everyone who visited this site donated $1. Then I’d probably have enough to make the movie… I feel really weird making this video. I feel like I’m on the street asking for change. But there will be a movie. You will see where it all goes. Just look around this room and all of the things people send me. You know this is the results of people being generous and sending things… I already know everyone’s willing to help out. If I didn’t know I already had awesome fans, then I wouldn’t even be doing this right now. So thank you.”

John Russell,

You obviously weren’t here early on. Because there were donation campaigns here before that Indiegogo thing.

James made videos stating that ALL of is video are supported by advertisements which are free to watch since you pay by watching an ad and giving donations. Ok, again James states ALL of his videos are ad based which is that way because they are supported by advertisements and by donations. Then a sentence later James ask for donations to support is long video called the “AVGN Movie”.

Okay so James just states all his videos are run by advertisements and donations. So it made sense to donate at the time.

Then John did a bait and switch cause guess what. He decided to change the ad supported “AVGN Movie” video into a pay-per-movie to charge his donators to watch it after he pretty much told them the movie would be ad based.

When you are saying that shouldn’t expect anything. What you are really saying is that I should just ignore James misleading statements on what he was going to do with the movie while he was asking for donations.

Oh, and you are welcome. I helped subsidize your cost of the movie. I’ve given more to AVGN than what amounts to your movie purchase.