For many years, Hollywood Stock Exchange (www.hsx.com) has been a fantasy stock market where film fans could "buy" and "sell" stock in movies, stars, directors and more. However, Cantor Exchange wants to bring it to real life, which has me choking on my Cheerios at this moment. Originally conceived of by the firm Cantor Fitzgerald, Cantor Exchange is a futures commodity trading market for movies. Starting April 20, investors would purchase contracts based on the projected domestic box office take of a movie. If you think Avatar will make $1 Billion, you put your money where your mouth is, and collect if the movie performs better than expected
Do we really want a society where people sit huddled in front of their computer screens waiting to make an investment based on whether or not David Spade will appear in a movie?
Worse yet, do we want to hear Warren Buffet trying to explain why he lost all of his money because Rob Schneider decided not to make Deuce Bigalow 3?
All of the major movie studios are part of publicly traded companies, so you can invest in their stocks on the New York Stock Exchange if you truly want to be involved financially, so why this?
Plus, I am curious how trademark and copyright issues will be addressed. Those of you familiar with sports computer gaming and fantasy sports are aware of a few lawsuits taking place.
Several athletes are suing EA Sports for uncompensated use of their images in various games produced by the company.
Players associations for the NHL, NBA, MLB and more have been pursuing legal action against Fantasy Sports League sites for use of names, images, information and more without permission.
I'm not a lawyer, but I can imagine one saying something to the effect of, "since Cantor Exchange will be featuring the names of a studio's intellectual property for profit", where's our money!
Of course, if Cantor Exchange becomes a worldwide phenomenon, I will be auditioning to be the Jim Cramer of Suzie Orman of movie futures trading.
