From: "Franky De Meyer" To: Subject: Important message, please read Date: Sun, 27 Jun 1999 21:40:13 +0200 Dear list members, Below is the text I have posted on binoche.com, today, June 27th 1999. As loyal list-members, I wanted you all to be the first to get this news. Here comes: ... Dear visitor, Please take a moment to read through these paragraphs. They tell about the website you are now visiting, ... how it started ... grew ... gained more and more visitors and success, ... and eventually - how it must now come to an end... Yes, the Juliette Binoche Pages no longer exist. It was back in November 1996 - almost 3 years ago - when I established the original WebPages, modestly named "Franky's JB pages". I had started them quite simply because there was virtually no information available on the Internet about Juliette Binoche - my all-time favorite actress - (with Julia Roberts coming in as second). At that stage, the JB pages already offered a very complete overview on Juliette's career, along with many high quality pictures. The response was fantastic. The most common remark from visitors of the site was that they were amazed to find such a comprehensive source of information on Juliette Binoche. All other sources on the Internet (with 2 exceptions) merely provided a page with pictures, usually copied from some other Internet source, and a few links. While many people became regular visitors of the site, some actually sent me scans, original articles, magazines and newspapers, transcripts and even videotapes. It was truly a warm feeling to receive so much support and encouragement. Obviously the site was wanted, and some visitors even dropped by on a weekly basis. Early 1997, the JB pages caught the attention of Juliette's agent in France, and almost simultaneously from her representative in the States. Response was very positive, and a primitive initial link was established with promises of information updates that I could use for the site. At that point it was clear that the JB pages could be the ideal basis of a future "official website" for Juliette Binoche. The structure of the site was very thorough, independent, free of commercial links, and most importantly, free of gossip and with greatest respect to Juliette's personal privacy. On June 27th 1997, the domain "www.binoche.com" was created, hosting a completely revamped website, now named "The Juliette Binoche Pages"... another step closer to becoming the official website. Response from visitors was enthusiastic, and the months that followed, yielded thousands of hits per day. Having a dedicated domain and accompanying virtual server, it was now possible to further enhance the site with a new mailing list, discussion forum and related scripts. In June 1998 I wrote a completely new script to handle the ever-growing gallery and to make it easily accessible and fully searchable. The site gained the attention of the press, and more and more websites linked to binoche.com, considering it to be virtually the official website for Juliette Binoche... ... Unfortunately - later that year - the carefully established links with Juliette's representatives were abruptly broken, when new people surrounded Juliette ... people with a rather negative attitude towards the Internet as a whole, considering it nothing more than a network for porno and child-abuse. Unfortunately, Juliette herself uttered similar - although less explicitly - comments regarding the Internet in several interviews... As the webmaster and owner of this site, I have been threatened several times by companies, who claimed to own the copyright of some of the material presented at binoche.com. And indeed, there was nothing else for me to do than to take the offending material from the website. Laws are laws, and I have never wanted to deprive any photographer or related professional from their rightful income. Most regular visitors and contributors of the site already know that I always specify full details of copyright info. I don't consider a site like binoche.com to be a parasite, publishing copyrighted material without permission. In fact I firmly believe - and know for a fact - that many people have actually found the way to the copyright agencies thanks to this very website. I have directed many editors to the correct agencies at the simple request of an email, and never got or expected anything in return. Of course this is just my personal philosophy, and reality dictates that a 'fan-site' like this will always balance at the edge of what's legally allowed, possibly to be taken down completely. Just think of the star-war fan sites that have been forced to close down when Microsoft bought all the rights... Building and maintaining a website like binoche.com is a daunting task, taking many many hours of careful research, translations, transcriptions, artwork design, scanning, mail handling, obtaining material, program-script writing, uploading, etc. Many of you - visitors - have realized this and thanked me for this work. As mentioned before, some of you even sent in some very interesting material that I could use. With a dead communication channel to Juliette's people, I had to revert once more to browsing through newspapers and magazines in order to find out about the latest JB news, so that I could post it on the website. This work alone took hours and hours of work on a monthly basis. High quality web hosting also doesn't come cheap, and I was never interested in hosting the Binoche Pages on a 3rd rate low-speed server, which would have caused only frustration and complaints. Obtaining magazines for use as source material is unfortunately also not a low-cost undertaking. Some people send in their stuff for free, but others charge ... and not a little... With no concrete hope to become the official website, and the refusal to allow for commercial dependencies (some porn-sites were more than willing to pay a high traffic website like binoche.com to display their banners...), the financial aspect of this hobby has become quite a big burden. After all, would you be willing to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars and hours of your time just to provide information about your favorite actor/actress to other people? Now I come to think of it, this is exactly what I have been doing, and I must clearly state that I have absolutely no regrets that I've done this. The marvelous reactions from all of you, visitors have more than paid for all the efforts I put into the site. If this website has ever made even one single soul happy, then I guess it has all been worth it. Having said all this ... now's the time to move on. I have decided to stop this website simply because there were more reasons to end it than to keep it going. There are no other reasons to seek behind this decision. I would very much like to thank all of you, visitors, for your wonderful comments, for your words of support, for your comforting messages and some of you for your submissions of material. It has been a huge pleasure to do this work, and to get to know many of you, spread around the world, but somehow linked by one person we all admire - Juliette Binoche, a talented, intelligent and beautiful actress. Once again, many thanks to all of you. Franky De Meyer June 27th, 1999 --- Practical information --- The Guestbook, Forum and Mailing list will remain active a little longer. I will inform you when they will close down. The domain name registration for binoche.com also remains in my possession ... just in case I might have second thoughts ;) To all of you who have a hyperlink to binoche.com active, please remove it. Thanks for providing this link, it has surely helped many people to find the way to this site. Guestbook | Discussion Forum | Mailing list IMPORTANT --- Please note that all written material, text, articles and concepts that were presented at binoche.com remain my property, and that none of it may be reproduced or used in any other way without my explicit written permission. --- Franky De Meyer, Belgium