I recently purchased the Criterion version of Rashomon on DVD. When I removed the security sticker from the top of the DVD it ripped some of the cover art off as well. Has anyone else had this happen and what are my options? Should I contact the retailer I bought the DVD from or Criterion themselves?

Thanks for the help.

Take it back to wherever you bought it and say it won't play, and you want to exchange it for the same thing. They should do it with no questions. Just be careful the second time.

...OR you can e-mail Criterion from their website, explain what happened, provide them with your address, and they will mail you a replacement. I had this happen with one of mine, and I received a replacement within about two weeks of my request.

this happened to me twice before.

If I'm buying a DVD in-store, I check several copies to find one where the cover art isn't sticking out of the clear plastic part of the DVD.

If I'm buying a DVD on-line, there's nothing that can be done about it except removing the security stickers very carefully.

No reason to lie and defraud a store. I'd go with nycbrent's advice

Try criterion first, if no luck with them then defraud the store

Wow, cool... that's good to know.

What's to defraud? I've taken back DVDs because of torn or broken cases. My Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind was all kinds of broken, and I took it back to Tower and they exchanged it.

Because there ther was (and still is) nothing wrong with the disc.

But there was something wrong with the case, and you are also buying the case are you not?

I do the exact thing. People in stores look at me like I'm crazy.

Some stores will debate you on this, but that's beside the point. The initial suggestion was: "Take it back to wherever you bought it and say it won't play". That's fraud. The reasoning behind the suggestion was that most stores *won't* accept returns based on the case / artwork, but they'll always take a disc that won't play back.

Yup, I agree. Take it back and tell 'em the packaging was such that it was impossible to open without screwing up the cover.

Or better yet, just contact Criterion. That saves you a trip to the store, the confrontation with the store management, and the anxiety driving up there you'll have wondering, while chewing your nails to the nub, whether they'll do a return or not.

This has happened to me a couple times, call me crazy but I just deal with it.

Or just tell them you need to do an even exchange. If you get a clerk who doesn't care or is cool about it, it should be no problem. If you get one who acts like he gets a comission cut because he took an even exchange then you might run into problems. But I took back Straw Dogs Criterion because somebody had spilled water on the case and the cover got all warped. This was at the time DVD Cover Art's website was still up (oh, the good ol days ) and if it was any other DVD, I would have ordered a replacement from them, but considering the collectibility of Criterion and how they increase in value, I wasn't going to take a chance. I didn't even have to lie and say the disc was bad, I just said I wanted to exchange it and they let me, no questions asked.

And that was at a Best Buy, believe it or not.