History of the Firm

[TinaT]

Thanks ladies for giving more detail throughout the thread. I didn't want to post all of it at once or most folks might not of read it for being too long. LOL.

IMO I feel the WHFN Fitprimes and Kickbutts productions for quality, sound/music and content was some of the best from the Benson Family. Right up there with Anna's Firms. I love everything about them. I am venturing out and have acquired quite a number of Goodtimes and Gaiam Firms.

[Carol K]

I'll add that when GoodTimes bought the FIRM workouts, they also bought the studio. But after GoodTimes went bankrupt, Gaiam bought the FIRMs, but did not buy the studio. Eventually, Instructor Emily opened a new FIRM studio. After Gaiam decided to stop making FIRM workouts, they still kept the name and Emily had to change the name of the studio to Flex. She, along with instructors Rebekah, Alison, Allie and Kelly made 30 streaming workouts called BeMax, which are still available on the FitFusion website. In October 2019 (someone correct me if the date is not right), Emily announced that her landlord was not renewing the lease on the Flex studio and it would be closing. She also stopped producing new BeMax workouts. I am grateful to have 106 FIRM DVDs plus the BeMax workouts on FitFusion.

[kat999]

Originally Posted by Carol K

In October 2019 (someone correct me if the date is not right), Emily announced that her landlord was not renewing the lease on the Flex studio and it would be closing. She also stopped producing new BeMax workouts. I am grateful to have 106 FIRM DVDs plus the BeMax workouts on FitFusion.

Last I heard Emily had a private FB group where she does daily live workouts or something. I haven't subscribed, but I thought that was pretty cool.

[bzar]

Originally Posted by TinaT

The general details are that there was a lawsuit brought on by a couple of her staff in regards to monetary rights with the Firm. I believe...please correct me someone... Anna lost.

ETA: Anna did not lose the case. But legal costs were why she had to sell the Firm.

Originally Posted by fatkat555

I could be wrong, but I don’t think she lost? It was the cost of litigation that made the Bensons and Anna’s husband (Mark Hendrickson) sell the rights to the name.

Originally Posted by TinaT

Fatkat ~ you are absolutely right. Reading what you wrote brought it all back. Thank you for the correction. I will make an edit to my original post.

Originally Posted by carly

Case Appeals lists legal argument of Plaintiff vs Meridian Films:

https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion...d/001359.U.pdf

the plaintiff in the pdf that Carly linked was Everett C. Davis, who was production manager and 0.015% royalty recipient.

just some random rhetorical questions that i don't necessarily need the answer to, just for discussion:

The pdf mentioned remanding - were there further judgments by the lower court?

legal costs in defending your products can be costly as shown clearly by this and many other examples throughout history. why didn't insurance cover the cost of defending this lawsuit, unless Anna was self-insured?

[Jane P.]

What bothered me was that when Good Times took over the Firm, they refused to issue the original six workouts on dvd. The ones that they did issue were not chaptered. It wasn't until after Anna passed away, that her family was able to get control of her work, and issue well chaptered dvds of her original work.

[Carol K]

And of course, the Goodtimes DVDs still aren't chaptered. But I do them anyway.

[bzar]

Originally Posted by Jane P.

What bothered me was that when Good Times took over the Firm, they refused to issue the original six workouts on dvd. The ones that they did issue were not chaptered. It wasn't until after Anna passed away, that her family was able to get control of her work, and issue well chaptered dvds of her original work.

Originally Posted by Carol K

And of course, the Goodtimes DVDs still aren't chaptered. But I do them anyway.

BSS1 DVDs (goodtimes product) were also unchaptered. when BSS1 basic set was released on 1 DVD, there were chapters just for selecting any one of the three workouts but not chaptered within. only a subsequent release of Super Body Sculpt was chaptered. I think the post BSS1 sets were also unchaptered. a few one-offs were chaptered, like BootCamp 3 in 1 which was technically filmed in the Classic Era.

[Jane P.]

That's interesting. When I bought BSS 1, they were vhs tapes. I later acquired dvds of the set, but they were 3 separate ones. They weren't chaptered, but the quality was good. The other thing that caused confusion was that there were different colored covers for the same workout, so it was easy the get confused.

[TinaT]

Originally Posted by Jane P.

What bothered me was that when Good Times took over the Firm, they refused to issue the original six workouts on dvd. The ones that they did issue were not chaptered. It wasn't until after Anna passed away, that her family was able to get control of her work, and issue well chaptered dvds of her original work.

Actually, Anna was alive when she regained control of her workouts. I had a few conversations with her when she first started remastering them. She was only into a couple of titles when she passed away.

It was at the same time that I would see pirated copies of her work on Ebay. I would give her lists of sellers that was trying to sell them and then she would send the list to her lawyer to deal with, if Ebay didn't do anything about it.

[Jane P.]

I stand corrected on that timeline. I think it's great that you were able to have that contact with Anna as well as keep an eye on those who were stealing her intellectual property.

I also think Good Times made a serious mistake in not issuing the original 6 on dvd early on. I think it would have been profitable for them.