MoviePass Ex-Chief Pleads Guilty To Fraud Over 'Unlimited' Cinema Scheme (justice.gov)
- Reference: 0175851585
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/01/08/1547209/moviepass-ex-chief-pleads-guilty-to-fraud-over-unlimited-cinema-scheme
- Source link: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chairman-and-ceo-moviepass-parent-company-pleads-guilty-securities-fraud-scheme-and
Farnsworth falsely claimed the $9.95 monthly unlimited movie plan was sustainable and that Helios & Matheson Analytics could monetize subscriber data through artificial intelligence, knowing both statements were untrue. He faces up to 20 years in prison for MoviePass-related fraud and five years for a separate conspiracy charge involving Vinco Ventures.
[1] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chairman-and-ceo-moviepass-parent-company-pleads-guilty-securities-fraud-scheme-and
unlimited movies (Score:2)
always was a joke - unlimited movies? who believed that?
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Yeah, the biggest weakness of the case seems to be that it was so obvious the numbers couldn't add up. If he had told investors, "we're going to do this as a loss-leader for a while until I come up with some scheme to monetize our subscriber base," he'd probably be ok, although he wouldn't have been able to raise as much investment which is the whole point.
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With the quality and content of current movies, who could stand unlimited movies?
I don't even want to go at all.
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That and I'm over theaters in general. Watching at home is a preferable experience for me, so whatever it is I'll just wait on it to be available at home.
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Like most unlimited plans, it probably was wanting to rely on people underutilizing the service. EG, the price that you pay for "unlimited" is less than the value of the service that you're using. Sure some people may hyper-utilize the "unlimited" service but your math has to work out to accommodate those people's usage too.
The problem they ran into is that their initial price was just way too low. At $10 per month they're basically just breaking even if the person even watches 1 movie per month. If th
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The people who subscribed in 2017 or earlier for the months before they went bankrupt, and the service stopped working?
He missed a trick (Score:2)
He should have used ChatGPT to send people to prison for just $9.95 monthly for the unlimited movie plan there. I guess he has as much as 20 years to watch as many films as he wants in prison on his subscription plan. He needs to think out of the box =)
Who doesn't? (Score:2)
Unlimited data, unlimited talk, unlimited refills -- who doesn't lie like that in advertising?
Same with AI, what company hasn't ham-handedly slapped AI onto their product description?
Seems odd that this is the one that actually gets prosecuted
Re: Who doesn't? (Score:1)
I mostly agree, but there is one crucial difference here. In the examples you gave, the consumers don't quite get what they paid for but the company makes money. The mistake that puts this guy in the dock is that he lost *investors* money.
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> I mostly agree, but there is one crucial difference here. In the examples you gave, the consumers don't quite get what they paid for but the company makes money. The mistake that puts this guy in the dock is that he lost *investors* money.
Yep, pretty much! You lie to your customers and no one cares (mostly). You lie to your investors and you're lucky to avoid the death penalty.
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It's not even that you lie to your customers.. "Unlimited data and unlimited talk"
Don't cost the phone company anything. Metering your talk + data and charging a high micro-rate for it was the scam, but your customers are already wise to it and tired of the bullshit, so they''re just offering their customers less bullshit in exchange for mega extra revenue at little cost.
"Unlimited" on a tangible good; OTH is ridiculous. Look at this model $7.95 a month for unlimited movie tickets. The average co
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> The mistake that puts this guy in the dock is that he lost *investors* money.
And as we know in America: Robbing a poor man gets you a stern warning; robbing a rich man gets you a few decades in prison.