Legal Drama in the Photo Mag Biz
Is this guy ever going to stop talking about photo magazines?
This story just keeps getting weirder by the day.
In the saga of the sale and death and rebirth and re-death and re-sale of the former Madavor photo magazine titles including Imaging Resource and Outdoor Photographer…
First BeBop bought Madavor in March of this year. Then BeBop listed the photo titles for sale for $500,000. Then it was reported earlier this month that the titles would be sold to Giggster, an online platform that connects photographers and directors with studios and locations available for rent. (Like AirBnb for filming locations. Why they would want photo magazines I’m not quite sure, but at least they’re thematically connected.)
Yesterday PetaPixel reported that BeBop had filed a lawsuit against Giggster to the tune of $25 million.
BeBop claims Giggster reneged on an $891,000 agreement in an attempt to defraud the publisher and steal intellectual property.
According to the suit, Giggster responded in an email to BeBop’s owner that it was disappointed by the accusations, that it is (or was) genuinely interested in acquiring the titles, and that it simply needed to address some “issues” uncovered during its due diligence.
BeBop has shared the legal filing on its website here, and it’s quite a read.
In the filing, Giggster founder Yuri Baranov is quoted as writing to reassure BeBop, “We are committed to finalizing the transaction. The legal issues are easily resolvable and are perceived as technicalities on our end.”
$25 million sure seems like a lot. But hey, more power to them. Frankly, $400k also seems like quite a bit as a purchase price for these magazines, but what do I know. I’m genuinely surprised—I guess pleasantly?—that they had reached an agreement, at least in principle.
I can only assume if the deal does go through—which one might think is slim chances given the $25 million lawsuit—that the new owners would be more interested in the titles for purposes of marketing than actual editorial content, but as I said before, what do I know.
Kudos to PetaPixel’s Jaron Schneider for his continued reporting on this fascinating story.
Bill- the week before last, a few of my photog friends (one a fmr OP contributing editor) i used to teach workshops with, crashed at our place for a few days of local photography. So i called George L. (OP editor) and setup dinner for all of us and during our conversation about OP’s second tanking and the Madaevor sale, there was mention that the new buyer only wanted the jazz magazine that Madaevor published and had no interest in the photo mags and was willing to drop them. Whether that has anything to do with the stalled sale or not, who knows, but the drama will continue. And probably no photo magazine will evolve in the near future.