...And I've cherished my official Italian Dellamorte Dellamore for years. Just because it's not out here doesn't mean it's not available. You can always go region-free and find almost anything released somewhere in the world. From Beyond has been officially released in Hong Kong, Germany, and possibly others.

Stupid. Go catch some terrorists.

And you are one of those who would fall for and buy it?

They should release these DVDs and the problem would be resolved. Look. I’m not condoning bootleg DVDs, but what are the studios waiting for? You want to kill piracy...release the damn movies.

I'm glad the cops raided them for that.

However, for stuff that is decades old and has never been released on DVD, where the owner of the copyright has no intention of ever releasing a DVD, I think copyright law should allow people to make copies for their friends. When the owner of the copyright isn't trying to make money off of it, I don't see any reason to enforce copyright laws.

Sometimes bootlegs are the only way to prevent classic work from disappearing forever.

It's against the law. 'Nuff said.
You wouldn't steal a car, would you? Except if you were in Michigan right now, where you can get away with it because the cops are raiding comic conventions..........

Shagrath -

I AM region-free, just wasn't at the time. But just because these may be available in other regions doesn't make my argument null and void. Monster Squad, anyone?

And don't think for a second they wouldn't love to keep you from buying an import.

You're right, it's still wrong. But we all have different levels of what we do and do not find acceptable, even if it's wrong.

what about the big difference between NTSC and PAL???

You just dont understand why "Region Codes" were set at the first place when DVDs came out.

I *ahem* KNOW SOMEONE who may be willing to purchase a couple of bootlegs of items that will probably NEVER be released...
Porgy & Bess with the musical sequences intact
Song of the South...

Heck, this person's mother even wants the person to track down some bootlegs of those two items...

If these are bootleggers, wouldn't it be the FBI who arrested them?

I think it's funny that people (not you, MasterCX) are ignoring the part about how at least some of the bootlegs were of movies currently in releases; folks, we *want* bootleggers like that arrested. Used stores buy bootlegs from people like this quite often, in my experience (inadvertantly, I'm sure).

Anybody selling other bootlegs at the con, I feel bad they got busted, but they ought to be selling on-line anyway (which, I would imagine, is where the comic sellers who no longer attend the con are).

And I don't buy the argument of "well, then the studios should release them!" If the bootleggers are doing it out of the goodness of their heart and not making a profit, I have no problem with it (examples: a lot of 'MST3k' fans, or some of the people who have made 'Star Wars' boots), but if you're charging premium prices for something you burned 100 copies of to DVD from an old VHS taped off of TV, I have no sympathy.

If a film or TV show is available on "real" DVD then there is no exuse to be buying or selling it. If something is out of print or was never available then I don't have a problem. In the early 90s I bought live music CDs all the time. I also bought live music, rare movies and cartoons on VHS at record and comic shows. Now there is no need to support bootleggers because the fan communites are make amazing stuff available and its all free. I have over 1500 retail DVDs, and I also have 300-400 burned DVDs of old TV shows , TV specials, cartoons, and movies. Some of them are incredible but I would buy the real thing the minute it came out.

Local plaza in my area (suburbs of toronto, those of you will know it as the asian plaza) have about 6-7 stores in the mall that sells any movie you want for about 5$ cdn (copied)

every few months, they're busted, shut down.. and re open up



personally i don't care.. i'd rather see cops spending more time busting drug dealers, rapists, murderers, etc, then worrying about dvd pirates

My player can do the conversion from PAL to NTSC with no problem, so that's not an issue. A lot of people complain about the 4% speedup on PAL stuff, but I've never noticed it on any of my PAL releases, so that's not an issue either.

Reading this thread I get the feeling that most posters feel "entitled" to movies, and when whoever doesn't release a DVD of the stuff they want, its acceptable to get a bootleg. Maybe its just me, but I find that thinking disturbing. People aren't owed anything, and there is no right in owning a movie. Now this isn't to say people can't get bootlegs, but don't try to justify it. Hell, knowingly buying a bootleg can make one contributorily liable for infringement (though who would bring suit on that?).

As for the arrests, I say good for the police. Because the crimes are in all likelihood federal crimes, I suspect these were federal officials (i.e. FBI) as mentioned above, not local cops. Although it's not like arresting a few bootlegers will really take any manpower away from local police forces.

Seriously. I fucking laugh when people make remarks like 'go catch some terrorists, or some drug dealers'.

Yeah...

Might as well not give out traffic tickets either, since they should be out catching murderers and terrorists instead.

= J

I don't have a problem with companies asserting their intellectual property rights, but I have a problem with the way criminal prosecution of copyright infrigement seems to only happen when corporations are the ones whose property is being infringed.

I mean, nobody even threated Jeff Katzenberg and Eddie Murphy with jail when they stole Art Buchwald's intellectual property.

"Entitled"? Not at all. I do, however, feel that there is justification in buying a bootleg at times. To give yet another example, movies by Jodorowsky. They aren't available in America. Why? Because of a stupid feud that lead to Allan Klein buying the rights to his films and refusing to release them on DVD in America out of spite. I simply refuse to let stupid things like that interfere with my enjoyment of a movie or TV series.

Any of you that think less of me for breaking the law, I expect you to deliver yourself to your local police department and demand a ticket every time you exceed the speed limit, as you're breaking the law also.

There is one instance where the availbility of bootlegs encouraged a studio to release a DVD. My So Called Life is such an example. Once it was shown to the people in charge how well bootleg sets were selling on Ebay, the green light came to get the sets out, and they sold quite well, much higher than anticipated by the studio.

If it's a popular bootleg, it will be a popular release as well. Die hard fans who would settle for a bootleg will give up the money for a proper release with better quality once it rolls along.

And that's pretty much how I feel about it. For these bootleggers, their over all costs to put out the product is next to nothing. The more slick of them may have DVD duplicators that are capable of doing several DVDs at once, which is costly to buy the machine, but to charge $15-$20.00 for something that pretty much cost a buck or two to make? I don't feel the need to give an asshole my hard earned money because he either ripped the product from TV or because he managed to find a site where to download the stuff for free. And I will admit I did buy some bootlegs at a convention once, but it was such a stupid mistake. Most of the stuff wound up coming out in legit DVD anyway later on, and for the rest of it, the DVD-Rs they used turned out to be crap, as the DVD-Rs started to break up and pixelate after a while.

I am not sure I am for using tax payer money to bust them, but I wish people wouldn't give them the time of day and then they would just go away. For things like Batman TV series and such....if the fans of these shows really were that passionate about these programs, they would be available for free online. When I think of some bands that I like to collect live shows from, most of the time, I cannot find any body to sell me live shows. It's either by trade only or there are those kind enough to put up files for free online. I am for bootlegs as long as people aren't trying to get rich off of it. It's one thing to share things that will never be released commercially without greed, but it's another thing entirely if you expect me to help you pay your mortgage because you choose to sell things like that.

I've already posted my feelings on buying vs. using fan communities to get this kind of stuff for free, but I wanted to say that in many instances, I don't feel that it's some kind of sense of "entitlement." People just want this stuff on a format that isn't going to wear out. If they can't transfer their own VHS copies to DVD, then they will find somebody who can do it for them. I don't see that as a sense of entitlement. Some people can't do for themselves (such as record each and every episode of Batman off of TV) so they will turn to others who can do it for them. How is that entitlement?

For years George Lucas has lied again and again. OK, now he's releasing Stars Wars as it was (and should be) and every fan well rebuy again. How many times is that?

I can't see anything wrong with someone owning or swapping a bootleg of the original film if the owner deliberately annoys a fan. We're dealing with people's memories here and not shares in Twentieth Century Fox or giving FBI agents something to do when they're not looking for Osama bin Laden in Idaho.

If you are found with 1,000 copies then that's different. Obviously.

I remember going there while I was on a business trip. When I first saw the plaza, I was excited, hoping to find some imports. Of course, every single shop there was selling just bootlegs, it was amazing. Some of the bootlegs were rather professional looking, and others were very obvious.

Although I'll admit I am against people making a profit on bootleg discs, I see the argument about some things that are not coming out on DVD. I don't think bootlegs soften the market that much. I could download/buy a bootleg of stuff that is in the theatre right now but that won't stop them from coming out on DVD in 6 months - and the official releases will have much better transfer and more features.

There are several movies I'd download if I could since they've had more than enough time to release them on DVD. Not all of them are great but if they can release - dead alive, night to dismember, my giant, lord of illusions, On Deadly Ground...

I think they should be able to release -

IF looks could kill
Colossus: The Forbin Project - WIDESCREEN
The Soldier - released in Europe almost a year ago - Soldat
Run
Looker - pure cheese but I liked it for some reason - was able to download - bad transfer - VHS.
Blade Runner - not the F$#@# director's cut.