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Pillar Of The Community
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I have had the 2021 digital edition of the Scott catalogues (all six volumes plus the Classic Specialized) which I purchased back when purchasing them meant you kept the copies forever (this was the year before Amos switched over to their "you must buy once a year each volume, you only get access for one year" malarky.)
Since then Scott has of course come under new ownership. All fine and well, I was still able to access my digital copies with no problem.
Until this morning.
I log in, I get to the new ScottOnline Webpage. Ok, so I login with what had been my username/password for the old Scott website. Username not recognized.
Huh??
So I call the new Scott owners. The lady on the telephone tells me that "they are having issues with supporting the old Amos website, and that they will no longer be able to provide access. As compensation, we will give you one year free access to the latest editions of all the catalogues to which you had digital copies of the 2021 edition."
BUT - that means only access for one year. The catalogues I had purchased were permanently mine to access. Does that mean I am going to have to buy new editions of each catalogue after the one year compensation is over?
She says yes.
When I asked what about those consumers who purchased catalogues that were supposed to have permanent access. She said something along the lines of "the purchase deal we made with Amos does not require us to maintain legacy account access."
A complete subscription per year, at present, for the six volumes of Scott and the classic specialized 1840-1940, would cost (at current subscription price) US$674.98. :o :o
Bear in mind, Michel's equivalent product costs € 221.05 (US$259.29) which includes a 10% discount for members of the American Philatelic Society. Yvert's equivalent product is a bit cheaper than Michel IIRC. Gibbons.....why isn't Stamps of the World digital???
Anyways, Scott can shove it. You want to attract new collectors to purchase your product, consider a sensible pricing policy. Paying almost US$600 PER YEAR for access to digital copies of the basic Scott catalogue is gouging at its worst, especially when Michel and Yvert offer an equivalent product at about 1/3 the cost.
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APS #173088
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Pillar Of The Community
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How dare you disparage this wonderful NEW company.
You are another uninformed or wishful thinking person. Sorry but the company you called and are now complaining about did nothing wrong. When this new company was formed it did not buy the rights to the old catalogs. Those rights remain with AMOS Press. It is AMOS Press with whom you have issue.
I suggest you delete this thread due to you misguided and misplaced anger.
Now go call AMOS and ask how to access your catalog e-version and then report back.
Edit: As to your pricing comments, that subject has been well covered in another tread. Go use the SCF search function.
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| Edited by Parcelpostguy - 04/30/2026 11:59 am |
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Bedrock Of The Community
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Pillar Of The Community
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Just called Amos Media
According to them, the new owners of Scott have ownership of ALL of the Scott digital files including the legacy ones purchased when Scott was under Amos.
Therefore I was told that I have to contact the new Scott owners to get acces to my previous digital versions.
As my conversation posted above shows, the new owners of Scott, citing "problems maintaining the original access" are now telling owners of previously purchased (for lifetime) digital catalogues that they are no longer going to be able to access them, and are now offering one year subscriptions to the new editions for free, after which one would have to pay the yearly renewal fee to maintain access.
So Amos is saying its in the hands of the new owners, not them, for owners of older digital versions to regain access to the catalogues. And the new owners do not seem willing (or able) to allow owners of heritage versions of the digtal catalgoue to continue to be able to access them (note, I had no problem accessing my digital catalogues two DAYS ago, so this change has happened in the last 48 hours.
So frankly my anger at this situation is correctly directed, and the new owners of Scott now appear to be ready to tell the owners of legacy digital editions to either take the new yearly subscription plan to maintain access or do without. |
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APS #173088
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Pillar Of The Community
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Update : I have access to my digital catalogues. However, only for one year, after that I will have renew them on a yearly basis.
I am sorry, this is unacceptable. I purchased these digital catalogues under the agreement that I would retain permanent access to them. The new owners of of Scott, according to Amos, now control all of the Scott publication files, including digital ones. They should definitely continue to honor the purchases made by consumers of the legacy catalogues under the previous owners under the terms made at the time of purchase. |
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APS #173088
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Pillar Of The Community
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Pillar Of The Community
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772 Posts |
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CJD - I do not have those, all I can say is that when I purchased the volumes from Amosmedia, it was still when the purchases one made of their digital content was permanently accessible. In 2022 they did change their terms to the subscription model based on one year purchase, but items that were purchased before the change in their digital access model were not subject to those changes, Amos continued to allow access to these items after the change in their digital model, and in fact I was able to access my 2021 digital catalogue not only for as long as Amos owned Scott but even after the new owners took over (I had no problem accessing the catalogues two days ago).
So I do not have any documents showing the terms. Maybe I could get them from Amos???? I don't know exactly.
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APS #173088
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Pillar Of The Community
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Quote:
How dare you disparage this wonderful NEW company. I'm having trouble determining whether or not you're being sarcastic. Do you truly believe the new owners did not "buy the rights to the old catalogs"? By that logic, the new owners can't use the Scott numbering system because that's the biggest part of the Scott copyright. If you were being sarcastic, disregard my comment. Brian |
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Brian Riley
APS 223349 |
| Edited by Rileysan - 04/30/2026 4:08 pm |
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Quote:
I am sorry, this is unacceptable. I purchased these digital catalogues under the agreement that I would retain permanent access to them. While I strongly agree with you in principle, there is no such thing as "permanent access" concerning digital agreements. There are loopholes that allow for these agreements to be broken when ownership changes hands. The only things that are permanent are those you can hold in your hands like paper catalogs or the circa 2007 Scott stamp catalog on CD/DVD, which was quickly discontinued due to copyright violations. Not that this will make you feel any better, but this happens in other digital industries as well. Centurylink offered a "Price for life" internet service promotion that they reneged on after only a couple of years. They got away with it by "changing technology", which they renamed to Quantum Fiber. And while the service plan didn't change, the prices did. Another example would be songs people purchase through Apple Music which may later be removed from their library due to licensing agreements expiring between the artists & labels and Apple. And while I find all of those examples to be unfair, if not morally reprehensible, they are not illegal. As I stated in the other thread, most companies are moving towards selling service plans, not products, which I refuse to accept. I expect all catalog publishers will eventually stop printing on paper and force everyone to online catalogs at which point I will be content to own the final paper edition of those catalogs until the end of my days. Brian |
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Brian Riley
APS 223349 |
| Edited by Rileysan - 04/30/2026 6:27 pm |
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Pillar Of The Community
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718 Posts |
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Sarcasm does not work well in any forum. We cannot see your face or movements or hear your voice. Please avoid it. |
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Bedrock Of The Community
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Quote:
In a sale of stock transaction, the company will be bound by its existing contracts. In a sale of assets transaction, the new company isn't bound by contracts that weren't assumed by it, but the selling company is bound and can be sued for harm caused if the contracts aren't honored by the new company (which the selling company can pay from the proceeds of the sale).
In practice, in the United States, sale of substantially all assets transactions are much more common than sale of stock transactions, at least when the seller is a closely held company. But both structures are commonly used and the details of the specific transaction drive the choice of transaction structure.
In a sale of substantially all assets of a company, with an assumption of only some of the selling company's contracts and liabilities, the selling company remains responsible for all contracts and liabilities not assumed, which it can use the sales proceeds to satisfy, if those contracts are breached as a result of not being assumed by the buyer. Typically, almost all employees of the old company are laid off and rehired by the new company, with a handful of insiders and employees that they new company just doesn't want left out. In many circumstances, the selling company also remains a guarantor of the contracts that are assigned to the buyer in a sale of assets transaction.
So, the selling company would have liability to the lifetime subscribers for a breach of their contracts (something that would make a quite straightforward class action lawsuit).
Even though the buyer of the company in the question wouldn't have liability for the lifetime subscriptions, however, the buyer would still be pretty salty and might even sue the seller for failing to adequately disclose these liabilities, because the incident may seriously harm the reputation of the acquiring company that is continuing to carry on the business of the company it purchased. But proving up the buyer's damages in court could be difficult.
A sale of assets transaction presents less of a risk of securities fraud or negligent misrepresentation liability for the seller, the seller's lawyers, and the seller's accountants, a reduced risk of malpractice liability to the buyer's lawyers, and more legal work for the lawyers for both the sellers and the buyers to complete the proper transfer documents for every single asset sold, liability assumed, and license transferred. It also leaves the buyer less exposed to "skeletons in the closet", whether in tax positions taken by the seller's company or undiscovered wrongdoing that could give rise to liability in the future if it is discovered, than in a stock sale. So, there are reasons why this transaction structure is more common for closely held businesses, even before considering issues like the tax consequences of each approach to a transaction (which can go either way in any particular transaction and can be quite complex to analyze).
If the purchase price of the assets sold was not "substantially equivalent" to the value of the assets sold in a sale of assets transaction, and as a result, the seller was rendered insolvent and unable to pay the breach of contract damages for any contracts that were breached as a result of not being assigned (such as past lifetime subscriptions), then both the seller and the buyer could be sued by the party whose contract was breached for conducting a fraudulent transfer, even if the buyer did not know that the transaction rendered the seller insolvent, which would allow the person with a contract with the old company harmed by the transaction for less the substantially equivalent value to recover damages from the buyer as well.
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There's a 99% chance that the 2021 terms specified a license for an unlimited access period, but not perpetual access, and not a sale or purchase. Intellectual property owners virtually never sell copies to consumers; all transactions are licenses with limitations. Any consumer's subjective perception that they are purchasing a digital work is almost always illusory. And virtually every license agreement, even one with an unlimited access period, is terminable.
The new Scott owners likely closed their deal after conducting IP due diligence and receiving advice that any past consumer license could be terminated. And now yours has been. It may be lousy customer treatment, but completely necessary to sustain the business.
The ability to terminate, assign, or modify the seller's past contracts or obligations is typically a core issue of any acquisition, so I doubt the buyers got this wrong.
I would love to see the terms of the license agreement. If you don't have them, you definitely won't have a remedy. Too bad. |
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| Edited by cjpalermo1964 - 04/30/2026 8:43 pm |
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What does the online access look like, is it a big pdf? Might be some options using AI to scrape the page images and save to local devices. |
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You can try contacting APS and file a complaint.
This is all the more reason to avoid Scott digital catalogs. They are way over priced. |
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Al |
| Edited by angore - 05/01/2026 06:27 am |
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I have always avoided all digital access subscriptions but my decision as based upon the premise that the seller ceased to exist. I never contemplated that a service provider would simply refuse to honor an agreement even if the agreement had off-ramps for the seller buried in the contract agreement.
Sort of reminds me of all of the things we do that have the read and accept T&C's requirements that are pages long and written in terms that only an attorney such as Chris could understand clearly. |
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Pillar Of The Community
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The simple solution is to stop using Scott catalog numbers. Collectors and dealers just need to agree on using XYZ catalog numbers instead. (Here the wailing begins).
If you can't agree then you are stuck with whatever pricing Scott deems appropriate. |
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Posted 04/30/2026 11:37 am
