MoC Facebook & Twitter

[zedz]

It's a Colossal Youth reference. The song is played in the film.

[Frankinho007]

mastersofcinema just tweeted:

Gearing up to make some big announcements on Friday.

[Jeff]

mastersofcinema just tweeted:

Gearing up to make some big announcements on Friday.

Looking forward to seeing Criterion and MoC play "Dueling Banjos" on Friday. I assume that announcements of Island of Lost Souls are coming from both.

[Frankinho007]

mastersofcinema just tweeted:

Gearing up to make some big announcements on Friday.

Looking forward to seeing Criterion and MoC play "Dueling Banjos" on Friday. I assume that announcements of Island of Lost Souls are coming from both.

According to their latest tweet, 5 titles will be announced Friday:

A reminder: COLOSSAL YOUTH + SCHLOSS VOGELOD in Aug, THE IRON HORSE + HARAKIRI in Sept. Will be announcing Oct (3) + Nov (2) releases on Fri

[eerik]

Twitter: Finished designing the new 20-page printed MoC Catalogue 2011/2012, hopefully printed sometime in August.

[eerik]

Twitter: We're announcing our October and November releases either tonight or tomorrow (Tues). Probably tomorrow, but definitely no more delays!

[swo17]

Anyone know who this is (from MoC's Twitter background)?

[Peacock]

A young Imamura?

[eerik]

Steve Hills twitter: Along with @mastersofcinema we'll be announcing the full Eureka/ MoC/ Bounty Films line up for the rest of the year tommorrow evening...

[souvenir]

I believe that picture is Shohei Imamura, specifically from A Man Vanishes

[swo17]

Apparently MoC are going on strike or something over Phaidon's insistence on continuing to use the "Masters of Cinema" branding for its book series.

We're stopping work, putting down our tools, until @phaidoneurope do the right thing and acknowledge that they can't use our name...We'd like fans of MoC to politely write to Phaidon and let them know they've named their books clumsily.

We're doing ZERO work on MoC titles while we fight this unnecessariness from @Phaidon to protect our brand.

Eureka will continue to sell MoC product direct as normal, during the MoC production crew's impromptu strike to protest against the publisher @phaidon's barefaced appropriation of our established brand. #badPhaidon

[swo17]

You can send your protests here:

Phaidon head of publicity, GB&IRE, Jennifer Lea jlea@phaidon.com
Phaidon, London Publicity Department T + 44 20 7843 1000 F + 44 20 7843 1215

Phaidon Head of UK Sales & Marketing, Daniel Groenewald dgroenewald@phaidon.com
T + 44 20 7843 1206 M + 44 7818 043 894

[TMDaines]

So presumably Masters of Cinema is trademarked by Eureka, correct?

[tojoed]

No, I don't think it's a trade mark, if it were they would have legal recourse.

[triodelover]

No, I don't think it's a trade mark, if it were they would have legal recourse.

If that's true, isn't this just cutting off their nose to spite their face? Without legal recourse for leverage, a stop-work only hurts MoC's customers and revenue stream. Where's the pain to Phaidon in this other than angry e-mails which they can delete/ignore?

[matrixschmatrix]

They've mentioned that they are taking this to court, so I assume they do have a trademark. Their argument is that the legal process is lengthy and harmful to both parties, and they don't particularly wish Phaidon any ill, so they're hoping fan outcry will get them to fold without having to sue.

[Tribe]

No, I don't think it's a trade mark, if it were they would have legal recourse.

If that's true, isn't this just cutting off their nose to spite their face? Without legal recourse for leverage, a stop-work only hurts MoC's customers and revenue stream. Where's the pain to Phaidon in this other than angry e-mails which they can delete/ignore?

No, what it does is increase pressure on Phaidon by depriving entities which market MOC releases of new titles. Eventually, customers will ask those retailers "why no MOC?' and so on and so forth. It's not a bad tactic.

[zedz]

That seems to be betting on very remote chances. 99% of customers are probably unaware of MoC as a brand (they're just interested in specific titles), and 99% of those that are aware of the brand probably won't notice the lack of new product, and 99% of those that do notice won't bother to ask the retailer "what's up?" (they'll just shrug), and 99.9% of retailers will have no idea "what's up?" and just shrug back (or go back to the start of this sentence, replacing 'customer' with 'retailer').

Oh, and if by chance anybody gets through that particular steeplechase of improbabilities, 99% of them won't bother to write an angry letter to Phaidon.

MoC may get some pick-up in that regard from direct communication with people on forums like ours, but I'm skeptical that it would be sufficient to put any real pressure on Phaidon. If there's going to be any solution, it's likely to be a legal one (or the threat of a costly lawsuit, though Phaidon is probably in a better position to call MoC's bluff than the other way around.)

[Tribe]

Keep in mind that Phaidon's potential market for the particular series of books that are at issue here is likely as big (or as small, depending how you look at it) as MOC's market. In any event, I didn't intend that the "strike" option was the end all/be all...there has to be legal action as well, which from the posts I understand there will be.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

It's on their front page now. I really hope this doesn't cease production. I was getting excited when Nick mentioned they were going to announce more titles by next month. Will it delay those?

[Gropius]

This whole dispute strikes me as a bit of a storm in a teacup. After all, 'masters of cinema' is not the most original phrase in the world (is the actual phrase a registered trademark, or just the logo?), and it's not as if any sales are likely to be lost on either end in the case of any confusion.

[matrixschmatrix]

On their front page, they say that they've been dealing with people calling about ordering Phaidon's books through them and things- obviously it's become enough of a nuisance for them that it seemed worth dealing with. And Phaidon is the much larger company, which means that if MoC doesn't act to defend their trademark they risk getting totally swamped.

[Gregory]

I didn't quite believe the strike news when swo17 posted it, it seemed almost unbelievable. The publishing outfit I'm with is like MoC in several crucial ways as far as I can see (an almost impossible volume of releases completed on a shoestring by a few people through sheer dedication), and if we stopped work for even a week we'd be playing catch-up even more than usual for the following year. As it is, it's basically impossible to have everything out by the scheduled released dates. Maybe they were planning to take vacations about now anyway. I don't mean to play the skeptic, I'm just still a little baffled by this.

By the way, for these email to Phaidon to have any real effect, I'd imagine they'd have to be polite yet include something along the lines of "I'll hesitate to purchase any further Phaidon books until this is settled in a reasonable fashion."

[TMDaines]

Add me to the baffled camp who sees this as cutting one's nose to spite their face. Protect your brand name for sure but this protest is sure reading like a joke we're all missing.

[tojoed]

Did MoC/Eureka ever complain about this DVD box set?

It was released by New Masters of Cinema Ltd, who, I'm assuming, are nothing to do with Eureka.