Hi all,  I have been reading with interest the detective work that
several of our valiant readers have been doing on what now seems to
be a scam.

I would like to point out that CafePress.com is a legitimate site,
and I actually have some friends who sold items (T-shirts, etc.)
for their garage band through this site.  If you don't believe me,
just take a look around the site.  Though they seem to have gotten
a lot more commercial and less individual in recent years, regardless
of whatever illegal No-No's Artzsche and News Documentary Corp may
be committing, all CafePress is doing is just selling their generic
T-shirts with things like the Kaufman orchestrion on it.  (C'mon!
When are we gonna see a Cremona K on a T-shirt?  I might have to do
it myself).  By protecting the secrecy of their clients, CafePress
are just doing what they'd do for every other client, no more and
no less.  So don't get them involved in all of this monkey business
except as a last resort.

As to Artzsche and News Documentary Corp., I looked at both of their
web sites.  The News Documentary site looks quite generic; I googled
the name of their project coordinator, Mrs. Jean Felione, but nothing.
However, the last name is a real last name.  It is possible that either
this is an alias, or simply that she and the handful of other people
by that name in the U.S. have no web presence (other than the News
Documentary site).

  http://www.newsdocumentary.com/

Though they mention a lot of technical equipment they have, and
services they claim to be able to perform, I am completely unfamiliar
with all of this technical stuff and hope someone on MMD who knows
about filmmaking, editing and postproduction, etc., can take a look
at their pages to see whether or not their claims about equipment are
obviously bogus, and if so, how bogus they are.

The rest of the site -- the photos of studios and equipment, the
descriptions of the services offered, etc. -- are so generic that
I wouldn't be surprised if they were ripped off of some form-letter
site word for word.  It is quite strange that Mrs. Felione's name
is the only name mentioned on the entire site, despite the generic
rip-off text claiming the company to be an "experienced and
professional team".  ("Team" usually implies more than one person!)

The only interesting photo is the one on their contact page, of their
"NDC Mobile-1". You don't even need to look at it that closely to see
it is a photo-manipulation.  Don't believe me?  Here's the image,
enlarge it in a photo editing program and take a good look:

http://www.newsdocumentary.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/mobile3_copy.122175050_std.png

Also note this text on the same page:  "News Documentary Corporation
maintains production facilities in the Midwest and West Coast.  Our
facilities are not open to the public and our client's projects receive
top confidentiality and privacy.  All inquiry(s) and proposed project(s)
will also receive absolute confidentiality."

Hmmm.  If I saw this text on another, more legitimate-appearing video
production web site, I might think this meant they specialize in
handling, um, er, "adult entertainment" videos.  But, with what we know
about this company, and the sheer bogosity of the whole site (to coin
a term), it just seems to justify that they're running a scam and they
want people/customers/suckers to keep secret and not blow the whistle
on their scam!

The Artzsche web site is no less bogus:  http://www.artzsche.com/
Note the text on the top banner: "News Documentary Corporation presents
the ARTZSCHE series of connoisseur films".  This means that the two
companies are either one and the same, or at least closely related.
Note also that Artzsche's email contact is <artzsche@newsdocumentary.com>,
which means it can be considered part of the News Documentary site.

I find it odd that they accept _only_ PayPal as the method of payment,
don't you?  I mean, don't most other reputable sites selling, say,
automatic instrument CD's accept things like checks or money orders
too?  (I could be wrong here).

I also find it odd that they have done only four DVDs so far.  I mean,
that in itself is not unusual, but it is considering the company has no
news page whatsoever like normal sites, to announce upcoming projects
and provide sneak previews.  In fact, no names of filmmakers, directors,
or in fact, _people_ (except for Abraham-Louis Breguet, subject of a
"documentary" having been long deceased) are mentioned on the site.
Very strange!

And, did anyone take a look at their sample video for the "History of
the Violin?"  What a joke!  And the background music to all of these
"documentaries" is quite sinister, repetitive, and sounds cheaply-done
and unnerving to me.  I know if I were considering buying one of these
DVDs (luckily, I wasn't) just the whole creepy and uncomfortable
presentation of these topics alone would put me off as a buyer.

I frankly can't understand how anyone would buy anything from them
after seeing these samples.  (I'm beginning to think the sample clips
are really all there is of these fake "documentaries", and are just
there so that their customers/victims can take the bait and follow
through).  In fact, the material shown on these samples all appears,
to me, to be fairly simply done, nothing too complicated for someone
with a few cheap computer graphics and video programs, and a lot of
time to spare.  (Note, for example, that most of the scene cuts
between shots in the sample clips are simple frame slides that follow
a predictable pattern, and at the same frenetic pace, almost as if
whoever did it wasn't good enough with the program to get it to move
the frame at a visually appropriate place!)  However, I am not positive
about this since I do not do video editing on the computer.

As to the source of some of the video footage seen in the sample clips,
well, I'm inclined to believe that either there is one good camera
person in the whole group of scammers who went on a trip to Switzerland,
toured a few of the museums, took some footage, and was inspired to do
the scam, or that they just ripped off previously-existing professional
footage of instruments.  Does anyone recognize some of the instruments
pictured in the mechanical music sampler?  The reed-pipe Clariona
organette?  The Limonaire organ?  If someone could put a provenance on
these, or better yet, recognize the source of the actual video footage,
it would add ammunition to this case.  I know the big Carl Frei organ
shown as background in part of the clip is indeed at a museum in
Switzerland.

I would recommend that those on MMD who were scammed do not just
sit around and twiddle their thumbs but jump on reporting this _now,_
before these bozos skip town and start up some other scam under
different aliases.  So, get your money back, but don't 'wash your
hands' of the whole business, since scammers rely on people being
soft and not cracking down on them to start up again somewhere else.
Let's _nail_ these people!

Regards,
Andrew Barrett