What is unauthorized edition?
 

Sometimes I come across unauthorized DVD or book releases being mentioned in the net and I don't quite understand what it is. Unauthorized edition means bootleg?

I could be wrong but I think in most cases they are talking about wrt the director. So someone else went in and spliced together a new version of the film w/o the help of the original director.

Whenever I've seen this, it's been a biography of someone. It means, they are telling the story of someone's life but they didn't get the cooperation of the person to tell it. It can mean that the biography is more like the tabloid "news" shows, and it can focus more on the seedy side of the person's life- drinking, drugs, arrests, failed relationships- stuff that an "authorized" version of the person's life (approved by the star and their publicists) would gloss over or ignore.

Maybe it should be a politically correct term for bootlegs, like "undocumented aliens" instead of "illegal aliens."

Probably not a bootleg; bootleggers try very hard to make their copies look undistinguishable from an original.

"Unauthorized" usually means that someone who would normally be asked for permission, or who would be involved in creating the edition, wasn't. Not someone who would be legally necessary, but someone who has some authorial relationship with the material.

A cut of a movie unauthorized by the director (released by the studio that actually owns the property).

A career overview of a rock band, unauthorized by the band.

A biography of an individual, not authorized by the subject.

Like that.

r

Thanks everyone! I think I finally got it :)