SOURCING THE TITLES

We source thousands of VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray titles every month. We buy from thrift stores, garage sales, facebook marketplace, closeouts, and even sometimes on sites like eBay, Craigslist, Amazon, etc. In addition we already have a massive collection of titles in our possession in both physical and digital format that we have been collecting for many years.

Some of our titles are so old copyright has expired and there is no one actively maintaining the trademark so we are free to distribute commercially and openly. Sometimes a rights holder places the work in the public domain space which allows us to obtain a copy digitally and then we are free to redistribute. Our time and physical media for distribution is what we are compensated for.

THE PROBLEMS

We have bought and sold thousands of titles physically across many sales channels for many years. We have several pain points in our business that seem to be getting worse and worse.

1. Our single biggest frustration has been damage incurred during shipping of these titles when we sell them to others. We have seen all major shipping carriers destroy cases and our products with no remorse, thus leaving us to refund the customer, and essentially call that sale, a total loss. No matter how we package the product, they manage to somehow destroy it. We have had 2,136 instances of this happen since 2006. It doesn’t matter how many “Fragile” stickers or “Do Not Bend” stickers we put on the package. A carrier will still try to jam a title into a mailbox, bending(and thus breaking the disc).
2. Loss or theft happens all the time. This happens within the carrier system or unfortunately after delivery where a not so nice person, steals the package off the porch of the buyer or from their mailbox. We again, are left to call this sale a total loss.
3. In recent years the cost of shipping has also increased as has the requirements for certain classes of mail. Yes, we can ship things media mail but most customers don’t want to wait 3-4 weeks for an item. We have been groomed into expecting our goods to be delivered from 1-5 days at all times.
4. Our last major pain point has come in the case of maintaining our operation both in a physical warehouse and employing labor to manage it. We’re based in California and commercial real-estate has doubled in price the last 10 years. Labor has produced the same cost as well. The pandemic nearly shut us down as well because we were not deemed essential, although we would beg to differ, but still. These factors have driven us to look for ways to reduce our footprint and labor costs and thus hatched the classicsonpoint.com concept.

LICENSING

Licensing for these titles works like this. Once we purchase a single title we have procured the first sale doctrine license. If we buy a DVD from a garage sale, and then re-sell it to someone else, this is completely within the rights of distribution of that item. The first sale doctrine, codified at 17 U.S.C. § 109, provides that an individual who knowingly purchases a copy of a copyrighted work from another holder receives the right to sell, display or otherwise dispose of that particular copy, notwithstanding the interests of the copyright owner. The right to distribute ends, however, once the owner has sold that particular copy. See 17 U.S.C. § 109(a) & (c). Once we have purchased the title, the original owner no longer has any rights to that title as once we sell the title, we no longer have rights to it and the new owner can then distribute that single instance themselves.

THE SOLUTION

The concept itself is really simple. We asked ourselves: “Why are we keeping all of these titles in a phsycial format when we can convert them to digital and recycle the original title and still distribute on a one for one basis?” Yes, we might be destroying the casing, artwork, and, if applicable, booklets but we’re also reducing our footprint. The paper gets recycled as does the plastic of the cases and the disc itself as well. There are instances also where a user our of service already owns the title and wants a digital backup copy. This was our original plan for this website but it morphed into this other plan as well. We use a strictly one for one license. We obtain a license for a title, if it sells, we reduce our quantity inventory by one and distribute that title on USB stick media. With this method comes the literal physical transfer of goods which aligns more with the legality concept. We ship the USB stick to the end user, which by the way, also solves our shipping issue in terms of damage and cost. It’s a lot cheaper to ship a USB stick then a dvd case with paper media AND it’s a lot harder to destroy a USB stick. We do for the most part, have multiple copies of every single work we offer. We don’t want to end up in a situation where we sell something we don’t own.

USB media really is the wave of the future. It is the most universally recognized interface known to man. It is safe, secure, and has an unlimited shelf life.

CONCLUSION

We feel as though we are doing a great service. Not only are we reducing the amount of junk floating around in the world, we’re also converting some media, that might only be able physically, into a digital format that will literally last forever. This preserves the work and will allow generations to come the right to enjoy this titles from yesteryear.