Perhaps I'm behind the times, but I just don't understand buying an obvious pirated copy of new theatrical release on DVD from the back of Buffalo Bill's van. Why not just go see the f@#ker? Sith on a pirated DVD versus seeing it on the big screen for the same goddamned price? Are people that f@#king lazy? I will never stop going to the cinema, which is WHERE MOVIES ARE MEANT TO BE SEEN. Oh yeah, and, what a dumbass.

Why are bootleggers on ebay allowed to sell these things by the thousands and never get reprimanded (because they are power sellers making ebay money)? I've been screwed by some of them, continued to report them to ebay, yet I still see them selling the SAME bootleg products now.

A better question is why BUY a DVD of ROTS when you can just download it for free?? That's being really lazy. I've seen ROTS in the theater twice. But the movie theater is 20 miles away. If I want to see a 30 second sequence from it to find something I missed do I want to drive 20 miles and pay another 7 bucks for it? No. I'll watch my screen copy. The dumb thing is why do people try to SELL these bootlegs? Is spending time copying them and making covers and then selling $5 a piece really worth the jail time?

Just a guess... but probably the people who actually made the films. This idiot is out there selling these things and making money -- and the people who invested actual cash in the film and spent the time to make it aren't seeing a dime of that.

This isn't a guy who had a CD-R of Beck sitting in this player. The guy had 1000 (!) bootlegs. Would you prefer they had let him go?

The crackdown has begun here in Boston. Over the past year, police have been arresting bootleg sellers at flee markets, and about 3 weeks ago undercover Boston police officers (these guys were very large, very scary looking) attended a comic book convention and arrested a bootlegger there.
(Which is kind of ironic, seeing that the first family of Massachusetts, the Kennedys, wouldn't have all that money and power if it weren't for bootlegging...)

Where are there flea markets in Boston?

You've answered your own question... If eBay can get away with it, and make a bundle in fees, they'll do it.

Was this at the Radison comic con last month? I heard a rumor about that? Do you know who got arressted?

How about we get crime where we can? -- btw, bootlegging IS a crime. You really seem to belong to the wrong internet forum.

of course not let him go.. if you catch him fine i am commenting on this insane craze against bootlegging.. like it's the biggest thing on the planet.. i see it all over.

i'm just saying there is bigger crime out there to worry about... any movie fan is going to buy the dvds because unlike music they offer good packages with special editions and special boxes with all kinds of extras and features... it's not like dvd business will go bankrupt ever they will always make money.

wow the guy selling bootlegs is off the streets i feel safe... yeah but the guy robbing people and murdering them is still walking around out there.

Yeah, you're right, bootlegging isn't going to kill you and steal your car...but come on, this guy was a huge moron. I mean, if I go to a grocery store and get bulk candy and try one to see if i like it, I look around me paranoid, thinking some 15 year old is gonna arrest me.....1000 DVDs at one time!!! crazy.

Of course there is. I don't think anyone has implied that bootlegging is worse that murder, rape, or terrorism. The police didn't set up a sting operation here... they didn't even seek the guy out. And, given the fairly trivial thing he WAS being stopped for, I think we can agree that this wasn't exactly the elite of the police force being utilized for this task. Found the ILLEGAL items during a routine traffic stop and simply contacted the MPAA to discuss pressing charges. During this time, I doubt that people were out robbing banks because the Florida police were "distracted."

And, again, I doubt you'd be making a "who cares" comment if you actually were a movie producer or investor and some 35-year-old idiot was out there making thousands of copies of your movie for profit.

Yes, it was the Radison comic con (it's called the Boston Spectacular Comic con), but I don't know the man who was arrested, although I have seen him at that con a few times before, so he was a regular.
As for the fleemarkets, they were actually outside of Boston (Lynn and Methuen Mass)

Huh? I could fit 1000 in the trunk of a small ford contour. Not much skill needed there.

Which guy at the con was it? (area wise, like what section was he in/what stuff was he selling?)

I want to know who I can't buy from at the Con in July, haha.

IMHO, Ebay will never stop sellers who sell bootleg DVDs, that would be just like killing the Goose that lays the golden eggs.

Too many screaming babies in the theater (I'm not joking... One is bad enough. Three is out of control.)
Too many people talking in the theater.
Too many cel phones going off in the theater.
Too many people kicking the back of my chair in the theater.

I've seen ROTS twice in the theater. I'll go one more time. After that, it's not worth the price of admission and aggrivation. If I can find it on bootleg after seeing it a third time in the theater, I'll buy it. If people could learn how to behave in a theater, I'd see it another 10 times in the theater and not even worry about trying to get a bootleg of it.

Either way, I'll definitely will buy it when it officially comes out.

i agree with you.. as i said i was sort of commenting on the subject rather than the specific case... in this case there is no problems whatsoever they found the guy and took him down.. wasn't a sting or task force... it just brought up the subject of bootlegs and that was what my comments were about.

you see big companies sueing kids and stuff over downloaded music... or sting operations in some cases.. it's a bit absurd.

i don't feel that bad for those people you mentioned.. they are still making millions and millions of dollars and live great lives.. should the guy be setting up an illegal operation and profit from it? hell no... but should there be funds spent on task forces and stings trying to bring these guys in? when there is bigger fish to fry and from all the money lost during this war it doesn't seem like we have money to just throw around at any random thing.

thats what all i was trying to get at.

i am not for bootlegging even though i own a few.. just because the official releases did not have subtitles at the time.. and i wanted to see the film so i had to get a boot with subs.. but i plan to purchase all the legit releases that come out with subs that i have boots for. (which is about 20 or so takashi miike films that half of them now have been released r1 subs)

thats true for big stars...but you have to think about everyone else from the script supervisors, electricians, the guys stuffing covers into cases making minimum wage, the truck drivers who ship them, and the guys who try to support a family by working at a video store. It drives the prices up for the consumer...and keeps people from buying legit copies when they become available months later.

its bad for everyone but the thief....including you who has to pay a premium price.

No fair! You're an expert at that stuff :p

No one should be copying DVDs and then selling them, that's a crime. Bootleggers should stick to the original crime of copying DVD rentals and simply keeping it for themselves. While it may be a crime, at least the law can't legally break into your home and arrest you for it.

I was in my local video store last week and some teenager was hitting on the clerk bragging that he had a copy of RotS on DVD already, complete with bootlegged artwork......and this idiot went out to his car and brought it in to proudly display it.

There have been some threads debating this very thing of late. 5 years ago I would probably have agreed that the cinema is where movies are meant to be seen, but with rising ticket prices, sh*tty screens and prints, ridiculous snack costs, cellphones, loudmouthed jerks as fellow patrons and screaming yelling babies and kids to deal with, I don't anymore. Sell me that new release 4 months later on DVD and I'll watch it on my home theater setup, thanks.

Flea markets... do they have fleas there?

You can't really compare a crime that the cops have actually caught, to any random murder that happens, and hasn't been caught. They can't sit around with Miss Cleo, predicting murders, while people sell bootlegs outside the police station, unpunished.

Imagine that you spend one million dollars on something, which you expect to turn around, and make ten million from. Then imagine that someone else finds a way to leak your product for much, much, much cheaper at a lower quality, and people are stupid enough to buy it. Then imagine that one person turnes into ten thousand people, all profiting from your product, and in the end, you make six million dollars instead of the ten million you expected.

The point is.. people who make films and music, make their living doing that, and anyone who is illegally getting shorted out of their paycheck, be them overpaid celebrity are not, are being robbed. And robbery is a crime.