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solelyfictional (![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} solelyfictional) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.journalfen.net/img/community.gif){kind=small} otf_wank,@ 2011-02-26 18:43:00 |
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Chivalry bookshelf; well, that's an ironic name!
I came across this first on AbsoluteWrite, but its the Armour Archive Forums that really provide the wank. I'm afraid I know nothing about the Society for Creative Anachronism, though after reading the thread I find I quite like them! Feel free to correct me on any specifics. It's worth noting that while I'll use screennames where possible, the vast majority of people commenting in the Armour Archive forum include their real names in their signatures.
It starts innocently enough, with a request for book and DVD rec's on a certain kind of arms/armour. Specifically, a book by one Brian Price. And as a secondary query:
On a side note: I was told today that there is some controversy about Brian Price of the 'John Clements' level of infamy. What is that all about?
There's some vague rumblings about Price, but no one seems to know anything specific (or anything up to date). Various books are recced, including Christian H Tobler's books on the Liechtenauer tradition.
All's going swimmingly until Tobler himself drops by with a request people don't buy his books. Specifically, his books published by Price.
Hello all,
shinyhalo wrote:
Hmm infamy? Is this the brian price who stole thousands of dollars from people wanting to play in the SCA and then never delivered the armor? It happens often it seems.
Ok. I've been holding my tongue on this for a long time now, but I see more and more inquiries about the state of Brian's business and I can no longer remain silent in good conscience, despite the possible personal fallout.
So, here's a former Chivalry Bookshelf author's perspective.
I have not seen one dime from Mr. Price in the form of royalties in over three years now. I stopped trying to extract said monies in 2007, after it became clear that any attempts at either getting paid or even receiving copies of my own books were going to simply be ignored. Phone calls and emails went unanswered, and the books and cheques stopped coming.
I am not alone in this experience. Mr. Price continues to reprint and reprint my titles without any form of remuneration. He's done this to other authors too, some of whom have *never* received royalties.
Regardless of what we may think of his book that is in question here, in doing business with the man, you're supporting a dishonest person who has betrayed the chivalric principles he claims to support while lining his pockets with ill-gained money.
It truly pains me to have to do this. I worked with Chivalry Bookshelf for several years, and once considered Brian a friend. But this kind of behavior has nothing to do with chivalry, and even less to do with friendship, and it's time to start looking out for others so that they don't go through what I and others have gone through.
Yours most truly,
Christian
She's not the only one. As the thread progresses more and more authors pop up with the same complaints. Greg Mele lists some specifics he's aware of:
1. To date, I have received exactly zero dollars for Arte Gladiatoria: 15th century swordsmanship of Filippo Vadi and my co-author one statement of $350.
2. Mark Rector received one payment of $300 for Highland Swordsmanship and nothing for Highland Broadsword. Seeing as the former has gone into at least three printings (meaning Brian has sold at least 3000 copies of the book), and the later into two printings, that is no more than 1/15 th of what he is owed.
3. Tom Leoni received one royalty payment for [Art of Dueling[/i], which has since gone out of print. His royalties amount to less than $0.30/copy, or about 1/10 of what they should have been.
4. When I last spoke to John Michael Greer, last year, he had never received a royalty payment from Mr. Price.
5. Stephen Hand has never received a royalty payment for English Swordsmanship, and only one or two for his previous books.
Simply put, Mr Price has not fulfilled his contract obligations at best and has flat out robbed the intellectual property of his authors at worst. You add to this his launch of his leather goods line by replicating products that he did not design, nor had permission to use, his alleged failures to pay Westland Crafts for tens of thousands of dollars of leather goods, and his history as an armourer and the picture presented is not very pretty
(I can't figure out how to link individual comments on the thread, but we are, at this point, still on page one).
Vitus von Atzinger shares a photo of some gauntlets he purchased from Price, which have cracked.
Greg Mele shares some more of Price's bad business practices.
1. failure to pay authors for foreign language editions (or even inform them that such existed), again in violation of the CB contract. This has been done with German language editions of Swordsman's Companion and Fighting with the German Longsword;
2. failure to provide authors with copies of their own work;
3. failure to return manuscripts to the author, even after two to three years had passed without publishing the manuscript (again, in violation of the contract);
4. failure to provide the promised number of copies of facsimile editions to the holding museums who provided the images in the first place - again in violation of written contracts.
5. failure to provide one cent of compensation to Agilitas.tv for the Messer or Longsword DVDs, and failure to return the master-copies they have provided Mr Price for replication. That is why Agilitas have now placed their products with Freelance Academy Press.
Most of the next few pages is a mix of people asking where else they can buy books by Chivalry Bookshelf's authors, though some of Price's other business practices are described by a rather angry Talbot on page 3:
I guess it is my turn. I have been quiet about Brian's wrongdoings for a long time because I considered him to be a friend and could not believe that he was as thoroughly dishonest as people said. However I too have been the victim of Brian's dishonesty. Unfortunately this has happened to me more times that I can count and in many more ways than I will relate here.
It all started when I ran a boot at Pennsic. Brian asked me if he could put some of his stuff out at my table. I said sure. I never charged him anything or took a commission. Then people would come up with complaints about products Brian had made or commissions he had not filled and went off on me. I politely told them when they could find him at the booth. They returned but he would frequently stand them up or blow them off. I just put it down to bas business man or a guy who is overwhelmed.
After a few years our business relationship became more formal. I sold his stuff along with mine and we took shifts at the booth. He would work an afternoon or evening and I would get to leave. He often would not show for his shift and I still had to deal with all the complaining people. Still I thought, Just Brian.
Then there came a time when I had to work my real job through Pennsic. At first my wife ran the booth by herself And Brian Offered to help out with more and more of his stuff at the booth. Still he was unreliable but it had become a running joke between my wife any myself and we just accepted that that was Brian.
After a couple more years with a second child my wife was unable to run the booth and Brian offered to run it for me. All I had to do was get my stuff and my pavilion there and he would sell my stuff and his as well. This worked one year just fine. However the next year the same arrangement was made and Brian took my tent and stock. He set up the pavilion, but never took my stock out of the truck until 2 days before war ended. I sold about $100 at that war. At that point I knew he was a thief!
Prior to this Brian offered to publish my book on 14th century armour. We signed a contract and I thought things were progressing. Picture rights were flowing in (according to Brian) and everything was going well (again according to Brian) the only thing was he would never show me any of the hundreds of pictures he claimed had come in. When I reached out to museums that he claimed to have pictures from they had never hear of my book or of Brian. He was lying to me. It took three years and legal threats to regain the publishing rights of my book which had languished. Based on the threads earlier I think I lucked out. Even if he had published it I would not have seen a dime. This book will finally be published this year with Freelance Academy Press.
I'm sure you know that Revival Clothing and Revival US used to be one company. Once they split I joined Revival clothing Because Brian had been steeling my designs and pieces and sending them overseas to have knockoffs of my work done. Many of his best early pieces were stolen from me.
In the early days when we were just good friends we did some trading. I traded him custom footwear, leather goods, brass casting and other items for custom armour. I delivered 100% of the items on my half of the trade. To date I have received 0% of Brian's half of the trade. I am still owed Greaves, Sabatons and Hourglass Gauntlets. To add insult to injury Brian sent me photographs of my gauntlets that he was going to include in his then new book TOMAR. These pictures appear on pages 441-455. It turns out that those were bring made for Sir Robert and not for me at all.
Plainly said Brian is a criminal. That is all
What you're missing here is the sheer volume of angry smilies this guy used. I'm assuming it's a combination of this and a couple of other commenters using the word 'fuck' that prompt Jester's plea for politeness:
I believe, sir, that some people are beginning to react overly strongly. I don't wish to tell anyone how to feel, but neither do I wish to see anyone allow their emotions to place them at risk of sullying their reputations by posting in the heat of the moment. A knight has fallen in the worst way. Let us all continue to speak the truth and remember courtesy.
Honestly, this is most the charming and eloquent publisher wank I've ever seen. I wasn't sure it even qualified at first. Then the Brian Price himself weighs in.
This is a hard thread to read, but, given the difficulties over the last several years, and the hyper aggressive complaints made by two people, I should make a statement here.
First, I will certainly admit up front, with continued sadness, that we *are* behind on royalties for the Chivalry Bookshelf, and are backed up to 2006 in some cases, 2007 in others. However, all royalties will be paid, just as previous debts were paid.
Second, I will also say outright that I am not surprised that Mr. Tobler and Mr. Mele--who I also thought of as friends until 2006--are leading this charge, particularly since they have a competing firm and are closely associated with Ms. Allen, who has a firm that competes with Revival.us. There are other complaints here and there in the thread which I will attempt to deal with; however, there are also a number of either falsehoods or severe differences of perception which may not be able to be resolved here. I am currently traveling and cannot enter into a debate, which also seems ill-advised if these gentlemen are considering legal action of their own. For the last five years at Pennsic neither of these gentlemen has made any effort to walk four booths down to discuss anything, but have been very free to complain loudly and often to anyone who would listen; there has been hardly any restraint in their vocality, which hardly constitutes reticence to leap into the fray.
REGARDING CHIVALRY BOOKSHELF
1) On the whole, I have *lost* money on the bookshelf, not "lined my pockets" with it. The project stated with a $50k investment by my wife, Ann, and over the years we fed it another $110k, rather than taking money out. I also gave up a very lucrative technology post in order to give it a shot. This state of affairs is what really drove the development of the second business, Revival.us. From the start, it was clear that the Revival business was rapidly overtaking CB, and in order to feed my family, the Revival business was the one that we continued to develop.
2) We paid royalties until late 2006, when the cash-flow for CB came sharply down. The biggest factor in the dramatic reduction in available funds came with my huge investment in Christian Tobler's In Service of the Duke. While beautiful and a masterpiece my Christian, this single project ran over-budget and came in at just short of $50k. To date, we have sold just $21k in sales for it. I had assumed, wrongly, that the book's costs would be recouped in a year, but that assessment was wrong. Unfortunately, a $30k hit in a struggling business is more than significant, it is catastrophic.
3) At the same time, also in 2006, the French magazine which we distributed, Medieval History Magazine, abruptly and without warning went out of business, leaving us holding about $20k in subscription commitments for a magazine which was now unavailable. At this was a French company who went bankrupt (they had a very fine line of magazines), we had no recourse. We did, however, either refund or give 100% purchase gift certificates. Technically this debt belonged to Harnois, as all of the funds had been sent to them, but we did not want to leave all of these customers holding the bag, so we made up the difference. It was expensive, but it needed to be done and was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, it came right as In Service of the Duke was going through production.
4) We lost our European distributor in 2006, as the founder of the Greenhill Books, Lionel Leventhal, was replaced by his son. With that transition their business reshuffled, and payments sent to us fell to a very small trickle. A subsequent distributor has sold even less and, in both cases, substantial stocks of books were lost.
5) Finally, during 2006, Mr. Mele and other members of the Chicago Swordplay Guild refused to participate in our joint WMAW/Schola Saint George Symposium held here in DFW. There was a great deal of ugliness written and posted about the organization of the event and predictions of a dire failure, which highlighted the very ugliest side of WMA politics. To be completely frank, this assault on the event given the many hours of coordination, production and the thousands of dollars fronted for it really threw me for a mental loop, and I resolved at that time to transition out of the WMA and possibly out of "sword stuff" altogether. This noise extended far beyond the event itself and I have to believe also contributed to slowing sales of books.
6) Mr. Mele's accusation that we failed to pay printers for the CB titles is false. We have paid every printer we have used--we have had one payment that was late, when the cashflow has been a problem in 2004--but this was paid completely.
7) The assertion that European rights have been sold and not paid for is untrue, although Mr. Mele could not know the details. In fact, we have only exchanged two sets of rights--one for Fighting with the German Longsword (Mr. Tobler) and one for Swordsmans' Companion (Mr. Windsor). Unfortunately, Mr. Tobler's work has generated only $250 worth of royalties paid pack to us (50% of those are due to him from that), and we have received $0 from Mr. Windsor's work. In both cases, we were to have received in trade the English rights to books by those publishers. In one case, we have never received the final manuscript; in the second, we have the manuscript but the translation has never been finished. Any sales of those titles accrue a 50% royalty as derivative sales to the authors. However, as neither is likely to see publication at this late date, it seems moot. We all lost on this one.
8) Dr. Forgeng's superb book on the Messer was delayed for the very same financial reasons as expressed above. It was due to fall into the same production quality as In Service of the Duke, but, being bitten once, as they say, we went back to the library to negotiate rights for what they call as "monograph" edition, but were unable to secure agreement on a figure that was marketable. I can neither afford nor justify another In Service of the Duke type-project when the first one sold so poorly. The museum wanted $10k for the rights to the "monograph" version, but that still makes it a $20k project--which we haven't had in the last five years and could not justify in any event with royalties outstanding.
8) Mr. Mele claims that Steve Muhlberger had never been paid for his two books, which is false. Like other authors, he has not received anything since 2006, although to be frank, the amounts we are talking about are exceedingly small (but are still a legitimate debt). Similarly, Mr. Hand still holds many hundreds of dollars of Chivalry Bookshelf stock which he has been free to sell, and presumably has done so. His English Swordsmanship is perhaps our lowest selling book of all time for us, and royalties for that are also very small. SPADA and Medieval Sword and Shield sell better, or did, but have also lost their market momentum. There is little on the balance sheet there, either, and we returned to Mr. Hand the second volume of English Swordsmanship, releasing the rights back to him, which made him angry. We simply did not have the funds to proceed.
9) So, to conclude on the Bookshelf, I freely acknowledge the royalty debt which I owe and which I will pay, as I have paid other legitimate debts in the past. However, one has to be in a position to have sufficient cash-flow to pay said debts, and as I will outline below, I have fought for the last four years to re-achieve such a position.
(yes, there's two point 8s in the first half. What's even funnier is in the forum they've turned into 'cool' smilies)
For the TL:DR amongst you: It's not his fault. He's broke. They all work for competing companies anyway. Did he mention he's broke? It's perfectly reasonable to still owe royalties from 2006, because he's broke.
He also defends himself over the broken gauntlets, the clothing company revival.us and the other accusations levelled at him in the thread. This post is already getting long, so I'll focus on the publishing aspect, but the Revival thing comes up a few more times, as does an event he organised with Greg Mele that Price's chronic lack of communication nearly scuppered. Also, on page 4 someone weighs in on his comments about Fettered Cock Pewters, which I wouldn't mention apart from the fact there's a business called Fettered Cock Pewters.
Anyway, none of this goes down so well. Tobler especially is unimpressed with Price's insistence that spending a lot of money on producing books means he shouldn't have to pay his authors, as Price does not appear to be particularly badly off. As far as I can tell, none of the authors ever received advances, which means the royalties should be paid from the first book sold, not from the point where the book earns back the investment the publisher made in it.
Now, as every good wanka knows, librarians are frequently made of awesome. Along comes Lady Charlotte, academic librarian, who is no exception. She shares the following tidbit (still on page 3):
I've felt compelled to provide you all with a link to a discussion of Chivalry Bookshelf's edition of Ramon Lull’s Book of Knighthood and Chivalry and the anonymous Ordene [sic] de Chevalerie (“translated by William Caxton / rendered into modern English by Brian R. Price”) at the website of the Morris Online Edition at the library of the University of Iowa, under the heading "Reception":
But perhaps the most striking instance of the afterlife of this volume is a little book published by The Chivalry Bookshelf in 2001, entitled Ramon Lull’s Book of Knighthood and Chivalry and the anonymous Ordene [sic] de Chevalerie (“translated by William Caxton / Rendered into modern English by Brian R. Price”). This book is avowedly a work of enthusiasm by Price, who writes in his introduction that “with the growing convergence between students of chivalric lore, reenactors, Western martial artists, and medievalists – the time seems right to release this new version. I hope it brings much pleasurable contemplation and provokes thought along [sic] what it meant – and what it means – to be a knight” (iii). There is no reason why Price should have included both works together, except that William Morris had once done so in his Kelmscott edition of 1892-3. In fact, a close look at Price’s edition reveals that he has stolen Morris’ translation verbatim for the entire text of the Ordène, and gives Morris no credit whatsoever. Indeed, he does not mention Morris even once throughout his entire introduction, nor anywhere in the book 5. Although Morris’ work is certainly in the public domain, Price’s appropriation of it without attribution is a decidedly unchivalrous piece of plagiarism. And yet this lately-pirated edition, too, is an example of the long reach of Morris’ influence in unexpected places – as a translator, as a medievalist, and as a shaper of the canon.
Let's just take a closer look at the bit she bolded, shall we?
In fact, a close look at Price’s edition reveals that he has stolen Morris’ translation verbatim for the entire text of the Ordène, and gives Morris no credit whatsoever. Indeed, he does not mention Morris even once throughout his entire introduction, nor anywhere in the book 5. Although Morris’ work is certainly in the public domain, Price’s appropriation of it without attribution is a decidedly unchivalrous piece of plagiarism.
She asks if anyone can tell her precisely where Price is pursuing his PhD, so she can inform them of this breach of academic ethics.
And yet, 'brandr' still pops up to add:
Brian Price has always dealt fairly and honorably with me & mine both on a personal level and a business level and I respect him for it.
Members of SCA seem surprised anyone could stand up for Price, and wonder if this is something that affects them specifically (that whenever someone's accused of misdeeds, there'll always be a few loyal friends who rally round). Poor guys. No, it's not just you. Welcome to the internet.
Lady Charlotte continues to bring the win against 'andras' (who, though not taking Price's side, is not taking the aggrieved parties' either). We've hit page 4, for those of you keeping up. These guys can talk!
andras wrote:
If you are wrong about the quality or veracity of your evidence, you put Mr. Price in a position where he can mount a definitive defense.
As it stands, his reputation is sullied and he cannot defend himself from the claims against him.
Hardly.
If anyone has made a false accusation against him, Mr Price can seek redress on his own in the courts by bringing an action against them for defamation. However, truth is an absolute defense to a claim of defamation.
andras wrote:
Give him his day in court or recant your accusations.
He can seek his own day in court! I have the right to speak the truth anywhere and I am not his nanny.
She continues to bring the win by researching some of Price's claims about how bad 2006 was for him.
After reading your sad, indeed, positively piteous tale of 2006 and the alleged financial decline of Chivalry Bookshelf, I visited your website, "Chivalry Bookshelf/Revival Enterprises" where, to my surprise, I saw that five of your 10 "Top Products" as of today are books (including Christian Tobler's Fighting with the German Longsword) and the Agilitas DVD:
Quote:
1. 14th century shoes
2. Light Sparring Gloves
3. Swordsman's Companion
4. DVD -Ochs Liechtenauer Longsword I
5. Fighting with the German Longsword
6. Arte of Defence
7. Swordsman's Gloves
8. Kevlar - reinforced Light Sparring Gloves
9. Talhoffer 1467 Rubber Hammer Head
10. SPADA: An Anthology of Swordsmanship...
Naturally, I wondered what your "Top Products" were by the end of 2006, so I took a trip down memory lane with the Wayback Machine. Imagine my surprise to read on the 12-31-2006 snapshot of your homepage that:
"Merry Christmas! We have had a record year, and we very much appreciate the business!
Hmmm....
I also noticed that your 10 Top Products as of the end of 2006 were
Quote:
1.) Swordsman's Companion
2.) 14th century shoes
3.) Light Sparring Gloves
4.) Medieval History Magazine
5.) Arte of Defence
6.) Fighting with the German Longsword
7.) SPADA: An Anthology of Swordsmanship...
8.) Swordsman's Gloves
9.) DVD -Ochs Liechtenauer Longsword I
10.) Medieval Sword and Shield
I then wondered what percentage of your "Top Products" consisted of Chivalry Bookshelf books and DVDs in 2007, so I looked at the Wayback Machine's snaphot for 2-14-2007:
Quote:
1. Swordsman's Companion
2. 14th century shoes
3. Light Sparring Gloves
4. Medieval History Magazine
5. Arte of Defence
6. Fighting with the German Longsword
7. SPADA: An Anthology of Swordsmanship...
8. DVD -Ochs Liechtenauer Longsword I
9. Swordsman's Gloves
10. Medieval Sword and Shield
Again, six of the 10 were Chivalry Bookshelf books and DVDs and. curiously, Medieval History Magazine was another. Should I note here that Christian Tobeler's Fighting with the German Longsword seems to fall pretty steadily at #5 or #6 among your "Top Products"?
She does this for the rest of 2007, to show that his claims books weren't selling are at direct odds with his own statements (the comment in the forum links her sources). And she goes on:
So then I began to wonder a bit about your businesses generally, especially after the claims you'd made, above, about Revival Clothing supposedly having been part of "Revival Enterprises" and your attempted characterization of Chivalry Bookshelf as a separate entity. I decided to check out whether CB was a dba name or a separate corporation entirely, so I registered with the Texas Secretary of State's OnLine Access service to corporate and business filings (SOSDirect), which one can do "as a temporary user" by providing a valid credit card number -- searches cost only $1.00 each.
Given that your "Contact Us" page gave your business's name as "Revival Enterprises, Ltd.," I first searched for that name, then, when the results were "none," I searched just for "Revival Enterprises." Only three entities were pulled up having the words "Revival Enterprises" in their names, as shown, below, in the attached screenshot "Revival Enterprises search results."
Even if "Revival Enterprises, Ltd." were incorporated in another state, it would still have to be registered as "foreign corporation" in Texas in order for you to be doing business there legally, but it's not.
I checked to see whether "Chivalry Bookshelf" was either incorporated in Texas, registered as a foreign corporation or just as a "doing business as name: no, no and no.
So then I ran a search under your personal name and the only results were for your martial arts school, Schola Saint George, Ltd., Inc., and WHAT A RESULT!!! (attached screenshot, below, as "Price, Brian search results")
Yes, "Forfeited existence." A screenshot of the State's Forfeiture Filing is also attached below (these are all public filings available to the general public, not private in any way).
You can probably guess where I headed next: http://www.scholasaintgeorge.org/,
Quote:
The SSG is incorporated in the State of Texas and has applied for our 401(c)-3 non-profit status.
It states at the bottom of that page, "Last Updated on Monday, 01 February 2010 10:53," although the corporate charter had been forfeited on August 7, 2009!
Apart from totally misleading the reader, whose pocket are the membership fees going into if the corporation no longer exists? Do your members and instructors know about this?
The Membership Page also claims,
Quote:
Your membership supports the continued development of the community site and our insurance.
But if the corporation no longer exists, who's covered by an insurance policy? How could a school insurance policy effectively cover either your members or the other instructors if the school no longer exists legally?
I am fangirling Lady Charlotte so hard. The pictures are available to download from the thread. Librarians show their sources!
Another new member, Dave Smith, pops up to tell everyone how very disappointed he is that they're 'airing their dirty laundry in public' like this, and that the fire seems to be fed by the same few people. 'It'll all come out in the wash', he says. LeeC disabuses him of this notion, pointing out some of the grievances stretch back to 1990. That's a bloody long wash.
Louis de Leon has his own take on it, that I'm beginning to see as charmingly typical of the SCA crowd:
I think that it is most knightly to stand up to a grave injustice. And to warn others as well. Hiding from a problem simply because it would be socially inconvenient is (in my opinion, of course) not knightly. It can be difficult. Google the phrase "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" for further details. You have to keep these things in context. We are actually trying to recreate ancient chivalry here. What you are witnessing is correct. Con men get run out of town covered in tar and feathers - and that's if they are lucky.
Oh, and the thread starter (you remember, that guy who wanted book recs) pops back, and is a little startled. Especially by some of Lady Charlotte's revelations, since:
In Feb 2009 I and 10 others joined together to start a local study group under the Schola Saint George. I'll be honest, the main reason I pushed for the SSG instead of other established groups was the insurance. I'm paranoid about insurance issues. I've seen first hand what can happen when an injury impacts someone's ability to work or runs up high bills and the company benefits or homeowners insurance lawyers get to looking for someone to blame.
All but one of us bought SSG memberships. We started scheduling community rooms at local libraries for our practices. In at least one case, a library official asked me if we were insured? Yes, of course.
Our group was active weekly until August 2010.
Now it seems that the Schola Saint Goerge was no longer a legaly existing corporation back in August, 2009. Was the insurance still in effect? What happened to the dues we paid again in Feb-April 2010 to renew memberships/insurance?
'Juan' steps forward on page 5 to say that the Schola Saint Geroge are aware of the situation, and that as far as he knows all the paperwork is fine (they've just been granted federal 503 tax-exempt status). Oh, and Brandr is a member of the SSG. Mele warns him:
Having now gone through 501c(3) twice - and being in the process right now for a third time, the final grant often comes quite some time after determination is made. Ie: the IRS is often lagging behind how the corporate status appears with the state.
My issues are with Brian, not the SSG and I hope that all is resolved for the school. But if the SSG *does* have final 501c status, AND it *is* in arrears, then that opens a huge can of liability for the board and officers that you want no part of. The problem is that the Texas Comptroller's office seems quite confident that the SSG has been dissolved for tax delinquency.Even if this was a paperwork snafu, the fact that it has languished for over a year can be crippling to fix, depending on state statutes.
How you all handle that is up to you, and I really don't think that is our business. But I'd make damn sure with a live human from that office that this is truly resolved, and for the love of God, don't rely on Brian's word! This is precisely the sort of "dog ate the homework" tales that always surround him, and it affects far too many people.
Lady Charlotte backs him up as well. With links to her sources, of course.
Woodsense, Schola Saint George Founder, Provost & Vice President, informs the forum that:
For personal reasons, Brian Price has stepped down as President of the
Schola Saint George and left the Schola Board of Directors.
In response, the Board of Directors has called an emergency meeting
and will issue a statement within 48 hours. We ask for your
forbearance during that time.
In addition, we are asking all SSG members to suspend official Schola
Saint George practices, training and activities until the Board of
Directors has resolved any possible issues with our insurance.
A lot of sympathy is expressed. A few more people criticise the dogpile. Price is comapred to Bernie Madoff (a comparison explored in some detail). Someone called Barnet apparently objects to Lady Charlotte, and all his posts are replaced with
nerd rage unbecoming and disgraceful, bad barnet no cookie
by a mod. Including the quotes, which is a thorough touch. A press release from the new president of Schola Saint George appears on page 7, which basically just confirms that he's stepped down because of the allegations online, and that any further comments by SSG members will be them speaking for themselves and not on behalf of SSG.
To finish up, Flechyr, one of the guys running Freelance Academy Press - where several of the Chivalry authors defected to - drops in to add that the books Price did publish were frequently badly edited. He calls his rival press 'FAP'. Well, what else could it be?
And that's pretty much as far as we've come.
TLDR:
Long ago, in days of yore,
a poster asked a rec for.
Many a book was suggested
but the authors asked purchases be arrested.
The publisher was such a knave
their royalties he'd never paid.
Not only this, a poster cried
his workmanship must be decried!
His gauntlets break,
his pins are stolen;
no man of honour,
would buy from this golem.
The publisher deigned to appear.
The accusations he tried to clear.
Royalties were owed since 2006
because he was in a financial fix.
Lady Charlotte, maid of the hour,
Came forth from her library bower
And offered proof of money owed
and plagiarism! by the cartload.
Worse than that, a business near
to their hearts had disappeared.
What of the insurance bought?
These were the answers posters now sought.
His reknown tattered
His reputation black
Brian Price
Would not be back.
ETA on page 7, we get more accusations about failing to deliver armour that go back to the late eighties/early nineties, and a plea from the German Publisher for Price to get in touch about the editions they're producing for him:
My name is Hans J. Wieland. I am the german publisher of one of the books which Mr. Price has mentioned. It is "Das Schwert" by Harald Schmidt. We´ve exchanged rights with "The Swordman´s Companion" by Guy Windsor.
I have been trying to reach Mr. Price for months to see what the situation on the english edition of our book is, but unfortunately he did not answer my calls or e-mails.
Brian, if you read this: If you decide to not publish the book, that´s fine for me. Let´s find another solution. I am willing to pay royalties for the german edition of "The Swordman´s Companion", and I am confident to find another US publisher for our title.
I came across this first on AbsoluteWrite, but its the Armour Archive Forums that really provide the wank. I'm afraid I know nothing about the Society for Creative Anachronism, though after reading the thread I find I quite like them! Feel free to correct me on any specifics. It's worth noting that while I'll use screennames where possible, the vast majority of people commenting in the Armour Archive forum include their real names in their signatures.
It starts innocently enough, with a request for book and DVD rec's on a certain kind of arms/armour. Specifically, a book by one Brian Price. And as a secondary query:
On a side note: I was told today that there is some controversy about Brian Price of the 'John Clements' level of infamy. What is that all about?
There's some vague rumblings about Price, but no one seems to know anything specific (or anything up to date). Various books are recced, including Christian H Tobler's books on the Liechtenauer tradition.
All's going swimmingly until Tobler himself drops by with a request people don't buy his books. Specifically, his books published by Price.
Hello all,
shinyhalo wrote:
Hmm infamy? Is this the brian price who stole thousands of dollars from people wanting to play in the SCA and then never delivered the armor? It happens often it seems.
Ok. I've been holding my tongue on this for a long time now, but I see more and more inquiries about the state of Brian's business and I can no longer remain silent in good conscience, despite the possible personal fallout.
So, here's a former Chivalry Bookshelf author's perspective.
I have not seen one dime from Mr. Price in the form of royalties in over three years now. I stopped trying to extract said monies in 2007, after it became clear that any attempts at either getting paid or even receiving copies of my own books were going to simply be ignored. Phone calls and emails went unanswered, and the books and cheques stopped coming.
I am not alone in this experience. Mr. Price continues to reprint and reprint my titles without any form of remuneration. He's done this to other authors too, some of whom have *never* received royalties.
Regardless of what we may think of his book that is in question here, in doing business with the man, you're supporting a dishonest person who has betrayed the chivalric principles he claims to support while lining his pockets with ill-gained money.
It truly pains me to have to do this. I worked with Chivalry Bookshelf for several years, and once considered Brian a friend. But this kind of behavior has nothing to do with chivalry, and even less to do with friendship, and it's time to start looking out for others so that they don't go through what I and others have gone through.
Yours most truly,
Christian
She's not the only one. As the thread progresses more and more authors pop up with the same complaints. Greg Mele lists some specifics he's aware of:
1. To date, I have received exactly zero dollars for Arte Gladiatoria: 15th century swordsmanship of Filippo Vadi and my co-author one statement of $350.
2. Mark Rector received one payment of $300 for Highland Swordsmanship and nothing for Highland Broadsword. Seeing as the former has gone into at least three printings (meaning Brian has sold at least 3000 copies of the book), and the later into two printings, that is no more than 1/15 th of what he is owed.
3. Tom Leoni received one royalty payment for [Art of Dueling[/i], which has since gone out of print. His royalties amount to less than $0.30/copy, or about 1/10 of what they should have been.
4. When I last spoke to John Michael Greer, last year, he had never received a royalty payment from Mr. Price.
5. Stephen Hand has never received a royalty payment for English Swordsmanship, and only one or two for his previous books.
Simply put, Mr Price has not fulfilled his contract obligations at best and has flat out robbed the intellectual property of his authors at worst. You add to this his launch of his leather goods line by replicating products that he did not design, nor had permission to use, his alleged failures to pay Westland Crafts for tens of thousands of dollars of leather goods, and his history as an armourer and the picture presented is not very pretty
(I can't figure out how to link individual comments on the thread, but we are, at this point, still on page one).
Vitus von Atzinger shares a photo of some gauntlets he purchased from Price, which have cracked.
Greg Mele shares some more of Price's bad business practices.
1. failure to pay authors for foreign language editions (or even inform them that such existed), again in violation of the CB contract. This has been done with German language editions of Swordsman's Companion and Fighting with the German Longsword;
2. failure to provide authors with copies of their own work;
3. failure to return manuscripts to the author, even after two to three years had passed without publishing the manuscript (again, in violation of the contract);
4. failure to provide the promised number of copies of facsimile editions to the holding museums who provided the images in the first place - again in violation of written contracts.
5. failure to provide one cent of compensation to Agilitas.tv for the Messer or Longsword DVDs, and failure to return the master-copies they have provided Mr Price for replication. That is why Agilitas have now placed their products with Freelance Academy Press.
Most of the next few pages is a mix of people asking where else they can buy books by Chivalry Bookshelf's authors, though some of Price's other business practices are described by a rather angry Talbot on page 3:
I guess it is my turn. I have been quiet about Brian's wrongdoings for a long time because I considered him to be a friend and could not believe that he was as thoroughly dishonest as people said. However I too have been the victim of Brian's dishonesty. Unfortunately this has happened to me more times that I can count and in many more ways than I will relate here.
It all started when I ran a boot at Pennsic. Brian asked me if he could put some of his stuff out at my table. I said sure. I never charged him anything or took a commission. Then people would come up with complaints about products Brian had made or commissions he had not filled and went off on me. I politely told them when they could find him at the booth. They returned but he would frequently stand them up or blow them off. I just put it down to bas business man or a guy who is overwhelmed.
After a few years our business relationship became more formal. I sold his stuff along with mine and we took shifts at the booth. He would work an afternoon or evening and I would get to leave. He often would not show for his shift and I still had to deal with all the complaining people. Still I thought, Just Brian.
Then there came a time when I had to work my real job through Pennsic. At first my wife ran the booth by herself And Brian Offered to help out with more and more of his stuff at the booth. Still he was unreliable but it had become a running joke between my wife any myself and we just accepted that that was Brian.
After a couple more years with a second child my wife was unable to run the booth and Brian offered to run it for me. All I had to do was get my stuff and my pavilion there and he would sell my stuff and his as well. This worked one year just fine. However the next year the same arrangement was made and Brian took my tent and stock. He set up the pavilion, but never took my stock out of the truck until 2 days before war ended. I sold about $100 at that war. At that point I knew he was a thief!
Prior to this Brian offered to publish my book on 14th century armour. We signed a contract and I thought things were progressing. Picture rights were flowing in (according to Brian) and everything was going well (again according to Brian) the only thing was he would never show me any of the hundreds of pictures he claimed had come in. When I reached out to museums that he claimed to have pictures from they had never hear of my book or of Brian. He was lying to me. It took three years and legal threats to regain the publishing rights of my book which had languished. Based on the threads earlier I think I lucked out. Even if he had published it I would not have seen a dime. This book will finally be published this year with Freelance Academy Press.
I'm sure you know that Revival Clothing and Revival US used to be one company. Once they split I joined Revival clothing Because Brian had been steeling my designs and pieces and sending them overseas to have knockoffs of my work done. Many of his best early pieces were stolen from me.
In the early days when we were just good friends we did some trading. I traded him custom footwear, leather goods, brass casting and other items for custom armour. I delivered 100% of the items on my half of the trade. To date I have received 0% of Brian's half of the trade. I am still owed Greaves, Sabatons and Hourglass Gauntlets. To add insult to injury Brian sent me photographs of my gauntlets that he was going to include in his then new book TOMAR. These pictures appear on pages 441-455. It turns out that those were bring made for Sir Robert and not for me at all.
Plainly said Brian is a criminal. That is all
What you're missing here is the sheer volume of angry smilies this guy used. I'm assuming it's a combination of this and a couple of other commenters using the word 'fuck' that prompt Jester's plea for politeness:
I believe, sir, that some people are beginning to react overly strongly. I don't wish to tell anyone how to feel, but neither do I wish to see anyone allow their emotions to place them at risk of sullying their reputations by posting in the heat of the moment. A knight has fallen in the worst way. Let us all continue to speak the truth and remember courtesy.
Honestly, this is most the charming and eloquent publisher wank I've ever seen. I wasn't sure it even qualified at first. Then the Brian Price himself weighs in.
This is a hard thread to read, but, given the difficulties over the last several years, and the hyper aggressive complaints made by two people, I should make a statement here.
First, I will certainly admit up front, with continued sadness, that we *are* behind on royalties for the Chivalry Bookshelf, and are backed up to 2006 in some cases, 2007 in others. However, all royalties will be paid, just as previous debts were paid.
Second, I will also say outright that I am not surprised that Mr. Tobler and Mr. Mele--who I also thought of as friends until 2006--are leading this charge, particularly since they have a competing firm and are closely associated with Ms. Allen, who has a firm that competes with Revival.us. There are other complaints here and there in the thread which I will attempt to deal with; however, there are also a number of either falsehoods or severe differences of perception which may not be able to be resolved here. I am currently traveling and cannot enter into a debate, which also seems ill-advised if these gentlemen are considering legal action of their own. For the last five years at Pennsic neither of these gentlemen has made any effort to walk four booths down to discuss anything, but have been very free to complain loudly and often to anyone who would listen; there has been hardly any restraint in their vocality, which hardly constitutes reticence to leap into the fray.
REGARDING CHIVALRY BOOKSHELF
1) On the whole, I have *lost* money on the bookshelf, not "lined my pockets" with it. The project stated with a $50k investment by my wife, Ann, and over the years we fed it another $110k, rather than taking money out. I also gave up a very lucrative technology post in order to give it a shot. This state of affairs is what really drove the development of the second business, Revival.us. From the start, it was clear that the Revival business was rapidly overtaking CB, and in order to feed my family, the Revival business was the one that we continued to develop.
2) We paid royalties until late 2006, when the cash-flow for CB came sharply down. The biggest factor in the dramatic reduction in available funds came with my huge investment in Christian Tobler's In Service of the Duke. While beautiful and a masterpiece my Christian, this single project ran over-budget and came in at just short of $50k. To date, we have sold just $21k in sales for it. I had assumed, wrongly, that the book's costs would be recouped in a year, but that assessment was wrong. Unfortunately, a $30k hit in a struggling business is more than significant, it is catastrophic.
3) At the same time, also in 2006, the French magazine which we distributed, Medieval History Magazine, abruptly and without warning went out of business, leaving us holding about $20k in subscription commitments for a magazine which was now unavailable. At this was a French company who went bankrupt (they had a very fine line of magazines), we had no recourse. We did, however, either refund or give 100% purchase gift certificates. Technically this debt belonged to Harnois, as all of the funds had been sent to them, but we did not want to leave all of these customers holding the bag, so we made up the difference. It was expensive, but it needed to be done and was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, it came right as In Service of the Duke was going through production.
4) We lost our European distributor in 2006, as the founder of the Greenhill Books, Lionel Leventhal, was replaced by his son. With that transition their business reshuffled, and payments sent to us fell to a very small trickle. A subsequent distributor has sold even less and, in both cases, substantial stocks of books were lost.
5) Finally, during 2006, Mr. Mele and other members of the Chicago Swordplay Guild refused to participate in our joint WMAW/Schola Saint George Symposium held here in DFW. There was a great deal of ugliness written and posted about the organization of the event and predictions of a dire failure, which highlighted the very ugliest side of WMA politics. To be completely frank, this assault on the event given the many hours of coordination, production and the thousands of dollars fronted for it really threw me for a mental loop, and I resolved at that time to transition out of the WMA and possibly out of "sword stuff" altogether. This noise extended far beyond the event itself and I have to believe also contributed to slowing sales of books.
6) Mr. Mele's accusation that we failed to pay printers for the CB titles is false. We have paid every printer we have used--we have had one payment that was late, when the cashflow has been a problem in 2004--but this was paid completely.
7) The assertion that European rights have been sold and not paid for is untrue, although Mr. Mele could not know the details. In fact, we have only exchanged two sets of rights--one for Fighting with the German Longsword (Mr. Tobler) and one for Swordsmans' Companion (Mr. Windsor). Unfortunately, Mr. Tobler's work has generated only $250 worth of royalties paid pack to us (50% of those are due to him from that), and we have received $0 from Mr. Windsor's work. In both cases, we were to have received in trade the English rights to books by those publishers. In one case, we have never received the final manuscript; in the second, we have the manuscript but the translation has never been finished. Any sales of those titles accrue a 50% royalty as derivative sales to the authors. However, as neither is likely to see publication at this late date, it seems moot. We all lost on this one.
8) Dr. Forgeng's superb book on the Messer was delayed for the very same financial reasons as expressed above. It was due to fall into the same production quality as In Service of the Duke, but, being bitten once, as they say, we went back to the library to negotiate rights for what they call as "monograph" edition, but were unable to secure agreement on a figure that was marketable. I can neither afford nor justify another In Service of the Duke type-project when the first one sold so poorly. The museum wanted $10k for the rights to the "monograph" version, but that still makes it a $20k project--which we haven't had in the last five years and could not justify in any event with royalties outstanding.
8) Mr. Mele claims that Steve Muhlberger had never been paid for his two books, which is false. Like other authors, he has not received anything since 2006, although to be frank, the amounts we are talking about are exceedingly small (but are still a legitimate debt). Similarly, Mr. Hand still holds many hundreds of dollars of Chivalry Bookshelf stock which he has been free to sell, and presumably has done so. His English Swordsmanship is perhaps our lowest selling book of all time for us, and royalties for that are also very small. SPADA and Medieval Sword and Shield sell better, or did, but have also lost their market momentum. There is little on the balance sheet there, either, and we returned to Mr. Hand the second volume of English Swordsmanship, releasing the rights back to him, which made him angry. We simply did not have the funds to proceed.
9) So, to conclude on the Bookshelf, I freely acknowledge the royalty debt which I owe and which I will pay, as I have paid other legitimate debts in the past. However, one has to be in a position to have sufficient cash-flow to pay said debts, and as I will outline below, I have fought for the last four years to re-achieve such a position.
(yes, there's two point 8s in the first half. What's even funnier is in the forum they've turned into 'cool' smilies)
For the TL:DR amongst you: It's not his fault. He's broke. They all work for competing companies anyway. Did he mention he's broke? It's perfectly reasonable to still owe royalties from 2006, because he's broke.
He also defends himself over the broken gauntlets, the clothing company revival.us and the other accusations levelled at him in the thread. This post is already getting long, so I'll focus on the publishing aspect, but the Revival thing comes up a few more times, as does an event he organised with Greg Mele that Price's chronic lack of communication nearly scuppered. Also, on page 4 someone weighs in on his comments about Fettered Cock Pewters, which I wouldn't mention apart from the fact there's a business called Fettered Cock Pewters.
Anyway, none of this goes down so well. Tobler especially is unimpressed with Price's insistence that spending a lot of money on producing books means he shouldn't have to pay his authors, as Price does not appear to be particularly badly off. As far as I can tell, none of the authors ever received advances, which means the royalties should be paid from the first book sold, not from the point where the book earns back the investment the publisher made in it.
Now, as every good wanka knows, librarians are frequently made of awesome. Along comes Lady Charlotte, academic librarian, who is no exception. She shares the following tidbit (still on page 3):
I've felt compelled to provide you all with a link to a discussion of Chivalry Bookshelf's edition of Ramon Lull’s Book of Knighthood and Chivalry and the anonymous Ordene [sic] de Chevalerie (“translated by William Caxton / rendered into modern English by Brian R. Price”) at the website of the Morris Online Edition at the library of the University of Iowa, under the heading "Reception":
But perhaps the most striking instance of the afterlife of this volume is a little book published by The Chivalry Bookshelf in 2001, entitled Ramon Lull’s Book of Knighthood and Chivalry and the anonymous Ordene [sic] de Chevalerie (“translated by William Caxton / Rendered into modern English by Brian R. Price”). This book is avowedly a work of enthusiasm by Price, who writes in his introduction that “with the growing convergence between students of chivalric lore, reenactors, Western martial artists, and medievalists – the time seems right to release this new version. I hope it brings much pleasurable contemplation and provokes thought along [sic] what it meant – and what it means – to be a knight” (iii). There is no reason why Price should have included both works together, except that William Morris had once done so in his Kelmscott edition of 1892-3. In fact, a close look at Price’s edition reveals that he has stolen Morris’ translation verbatim for the entire text of the Ordène, and gives Morris no credit whatsoever. Indeed, he does not mention Morris even once throughout his entire introduction, nor anywhere in the book 5. Although Morris’ work is certainly in the public domain, Price’s appropriation of it without attribution is a decidedly unchivalrous piece of plagiarism. And yet this lately-pirated edition, too, is an example of the long reach of Morris’ influence in unexpected places – as a translator, as a medievalist, and as a shaper of the canon.
Let's just take a closer look at the bit she bolded, shall we?
In fact, a close look at Price’s edition reveals that he has stolen Morris’ translation verbatim for the entire text of the Ordène, and gives Morris no credit whatsoever. Indeed, he does not mention Morris even once throughout his entire introduction, nor anywhere in the book 5. Although Morris’ work is certainly in the public domain, Price’s appropriation of it without attribution is a decidedly unchivalrous piece of plagiarism.
She asks if anyone can tell her precisely where Price is pursuing his PhD, so she can inform them of this breach of academic ethics.
And yet, 'brandr' still pops up to add:
Brian Price has always dealt fairly and honorably with me & mine both on a personal level and a business level and I respect him for it.
Members of SCA seem surprised anyone could stand up for Price, and wonder if this is something that affects them specifically (that whenever someone's accused of misdeeds, there'll always be a few loyal friends who rally round). Poor guys. No, it's not just you. Welcome to the internet.
Lady Charlotte continues to bring the win against 'andras' (who, though not taking Price's side, is not taking the aggrieved parties' either). We've hit page 4, for those of you keeping up. These guys can talk!
andras wrote:
If you are wrong about the quality or veracity of your evidence, you put Mr. Price in a position where he can mount a definitive defense.
As it stands, his reputation is sullied and he cannot defend himself from the claims against him.
Hardly.
If anyone has made a false accusation against him, Mr Price can seek redress on his own in the courts by bringing an action against them for defamation. However, truth is an absolute defense to a claim of defamation.
andras wrote:
Give him his day in court or recant your accusations.
He can seek his own day in court! I have the right to speak the truth anywhere and I am not his nanny.
She continues to bring the win by researching some of Price's claims about how bad 2006 was for him.
After reading your sad, indeed, positively piteous tale of 2006 and the alleged financial decline of Chivalry Bookshelf, I visited your website, "Chivalry Bookshelf/Revival Enterprises" where, to my surprise, I saw that five of your 10 "Top Products" as of today are books (including Christian Tobler's Fighting with the German Longsword) and the Agilitas DVD:
Quote:
1. 14th century shoes
2. Light Sparring Gloves
3. Swordsman's Companion
4. DVD -Ochs Liechtenauer Longsword I
5. Fighting with the German Longsword
6. Arte of Defence
7. Swordsman's Gloves
8. Kevlar - reinforced Light Sparring Gloves
9. Talhoffer 1467 Rubber Hammer Head
10. SPADA: An Anthology of Swordsmanship...
Naturally, I wondered what your "Top Products" were by the end of 2006, so I took a trip down memory lane with the Wayback Machine. Imagine my surprise to read on the 12-31-2006 snapshot of your homepage that:
"Merry Christmas! We have had a record year, and we very much appreciate the business!
Hmmm....
I also noticed that your 10 Top Products as of the end of 2006 were
Quote:
1.) Swordsman's Companion
2.) 14th century shoes
3.) Light Sparring Gloves
4.) Medieval History Magazine
5.) Arte of Defence
6.) Fighting with the German Longsword
7.) SPADA: An Anthology of Swordsmanship...
8.) Swordsman's Gloves
9.) DVD -Ochs Liechtenauer Longsword I
10.) Medieval Sword and Shield
I then wondered what percentage of your "Top Products" consisted of Chivalry Bookshelf books and DVDs in 2007, so I looked at the Wayback Machine's snaphot for 2-14-2007:
Quote:
1. Swordsman's Companion
2. 14th century shoes
3. Light Sparring Gloves
4. Medieval History Magazine
5. Arte of Defence
6. Fighting with the German Longsword
7. SPADA: An Anthology of Swordsmanship...
8. DVD -Ochs Liechtenauer Longsword I
9. Swordsman's Gloves
10. Medieval Sword and Shield
Again, six of the 10 were Chivalry Bookshelf books and DVDs and. curiously, Medieval History Magazine was another. Should I note here that Christian Tobeler's Fighting with the German Longsword seems to fall pretty steadily at #5 or #6 among your "Top Products"?
She does this for the rest of 2007, to show that his claims books weren't selling are at direct odds with his own statements (the comment in the forum links her sources). And she goes on:
So then I began to wonder a bit about your businesses generally, especially after the claims you'd made, above, about Revival Clothing supposedly having been part of "Revival Enterprises" and your attempted characterization of Chivalry Bookshelf as a separate entity. I decided to check out whether CB was a dba name or a separate corporation entirely, so I registered with the Texas Secretary of State's OnLine Access service to corporate and business filings (SOSDirect), which one can do "as a temporary user" by providing a valid credit card number -- searches cost only $1.00 each.
Given that your "Contact Us" page gave your business's name as "Revival Enterprises, Ltd.," I first searched for that name, then, when the results were "none," I searched just for "Revival Enterprises." Only three entities were pulled up having the words "Revival Enterprises" in their names, as shown, below, in the attached screenshot "Revival Enterprises search results."
Even if "Revival Enterprises, Ltd." were incorporated in another state, it would still have to be registered as "foreign corporation" in Texas in order for you to be doing business there legally, but it's not.
I checked to see whether "Chivalry Bookshelf" was either incorporated in Texas, registered as a foreign corporation or just as a "doing business as name: no, no and no.
So then I ran a search under your personal name and the only results were for your martial arts school, Schola Saint George, Ltd., Inc., and WHAT A RESULT!!! (attached screenshot, below, as "Price, Brian search results")
Yes, "Forfeited existence." A screenshot of the State's Forfeiture Filing is also attached below (these are all public filings available to the general public, not private in any way).
You can probably guess where I headed next: http://www.scholasaintgeorge.org/,
Quote:
The SSG is incorporated in the State of Texas and has applied for our 401(c)-3 non-profit status.
It states at the bottom of that page, "Last Updated on Monday, 01 February 2010 10:53," although the corporate charter had been forfeited on August 7, 2009!
Apart from totally misleading the reader, whose pocket are the membership fees going into if the corporation no longer exists? Do your members and instructors know about this?
The Membership Page also claims,
Quote:
Your membership supports the continued development of the community site and our insurance.
But if the corporation no longer exists, who's covered by an insurance policy? How could a school insurance policy effectively cover either your members or the other instructors if the school no longer exists legally?
I am fangirling Lady Charlotte so hard. The pictures are available to download from the thread. Librarians show their sources!
Another new member, Dave Smith, pops up to tell everyone how very disappointed he is that they're 'airing their dirty laundry in public' like this, and that the fire seems to be fed by the same few people. 'It'll all come out in the wash', he says. LeeC disabuses him of this notion, pointing out some of the grievances stretch back to 1990. That's a bloody long wash.
Louis de Leon has his own take on it, that I'm beginning to see as charmingly typical of the SCA crowd:
I think that it is most knightly to stand up to a grave injustice. And to warn others as well. Hiding from a problem simply because it would be socially inconvenient is (in my opinion, of course) not knightly. It can be difficult. Google the phrase "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" for further details. You have to keep these things in context. We are actually trying to recreate ancient chivalry here. What you are witnessing is correct. Con men get run out of town covered in tar and feathers - and that's if they are lucky.
Oh, and the thread starter (you remember, that guy who wanted book recs) pops back, and is a little startled. Especially by some of Lady Charlotte's revelations, since:
In Feb 2009 I and 10 others joined together to start a local study group under the Schola Saint George. I'll be honest, the main reason I pushed for the SSG instead of other established groups was the insurance. I'm paranoid about insurance issues. I've seen first hand what can happen when an injury impacts someone's ability to work or runs up high bills and the company benefits or homeowners insurance lawyers get to looking for someone to blame.
All but one of us bought SSG memberships. We started scheduling community rooms at local libraries for our practices. In at least one case, a library official asked me if we were insured? Yes, of course.
Our group was active weekly until August 2010.
Now it seems that the Schola Saint Goerge was no longer a legaly existing corporation back in August, 2009. Was the insurance still in effect? What happened to the dues we paid again in Feb-April 2010 to renew memberships/insurance?
'Juan' steps forward on page 5 to say that the Schola Saint Geroge are aware of the situation, and that as far as he knows all the paperwork is fine (they've just been granted federal 503 tax-exempt status). Oh, and Brandr is a member of the SSG. Mele warns him:
Having now gone through 501c(3) twice - and being in the process right now for a third time, the final grant often comes quite some time after determination is made. Ie: the IRS is often lagging behind how the corporate status appears with the state.
My issues are with Brian, not the SSG and I hope that all is resolved for the school. But if the SSG *does* have final 501c status, AND it *is* in arrears, then that opens a huge can of liability for the board and officers that you want no part of. The problem is that the Texas Comptroller's office seems quite confident that the SSG has been dissolved for tax delinquency.Even if this was a paperwork snafu, the fact that it has languished for over a year can be crippling to fix, depending on state statutes.
How you all handle that is up to you, and I really don't think that is our business. But I'd make damn sure with a live human from that office that this is truly resolved, and for the love of God, don't rely on Brian's word! This is precisely the sort of "dog ate the homework" tales that always surround him, and it affects far too many people.
Lady Charlotte backs him up as well. With links to her sources, of course.
Woodsense, Schola Saint George Founder, Provost & Vice President, informs the forum that:
For personal reasons, Brian Price has stepped down as President of the
Schola Saint George and left the Schola Board of Directors.
In response, the Board of Directors has called an emergency meeting
and will issue a statement within 48 hours. We ask for your
forbearance during that time.
In addition, we are asking all SSG members to suspend official Schola
Saint George practices, training and activities until the Board of
Directors has resolved any possible issues with our insurance.
A lot of sympathy is expressed. A few more people criticise the dogpile. Price is comapred to Bernie Madoff (a comparison explored in some detail). Someone called Barnet apparently objects to Lady Charlotte, and all his posts are replaced with
nerd rage unbecoming and disgraceful, bad barnet no cookie
by a mod. Including the quotes, which is a thorough touch. A press release from the new president of Schola Saint George appears on page 7, which basically just confirms that he's stepped down because of the allegations online, and that any further comments by SSG members will be them speaking for themselves and not on behalf of SSG.
To finish up, Flechyr, one of the guys running Freelance Academy Press - where several of the Chivalry authors defected to - drops in to add that the books Price did publish were frequently badly edited. He calls his rival press 'FAP'. Well, what else could it be?
And that's pretty much as far as we've come.
TLDR:
Long ago, in days of yore,
a poster asked a rec for.
Many a book was suggested
but the authors asked purchases be arrested.
The publisher was such a knave
their royalties he'd never paid.
Not only this, a poster cried
his workmanship must be decried!
His gauntlets break,
his pins are stolen;
no man of honour,
would buy from this golem.
The publisher deigned to appear.
The accusations he tried to clear.
Royalties were owed since 2006
because he was in a financial fix.
Lady Charlotte, maid of the hour,
Came forth from her library bower
And offered proof of money owed
and plagiarism! by the cartload.
Worse than that, a business near
to their hearts had disappeared.
What of the insurance bought?
These were the answers posters now sought.
His reknown tattered
His reputation black
Brian Price
Would not be back.
ETA on page 7, we get more accusations about failing to deliver armour that go back to the late eighties/early nineties, and a plea from the German Publisher for Price to get in touch about the editions they're producing for him:
My name is Hans J. Wieland. I am the german publisher of one of the books which Mr. Price has mentioned. It is "Das Schwert" by Harald Schmidt. We´ve exchanged rights with "The Swordman´s Companion" by Guy Windsor.
I have been trying to reach Mr. Price for months to see what the situation on the english edition of our book is, but unfortunately he did not answer my calls or e-mails.
Brian, if you read this: If you decide to not publish the book, that´s fine for me. Let´s find another solution. I am willing to pay royalties for the german edition of "The Swordman´s Companion", and I am confident to find another US publisher for our title.
