The used DVD market, like the used book market, is going to be a fairly small section of the market. More important, they're legal under copyright law, which represents a compromise between the interests of authors and the public. We do lose some money, not because there's an active market for buying and selling our books used, but because some companies put them in their libraries, making them available to multiple employees. But when people do legally purchase used DVDs or books, at least the publisher made the profit on one sale initially. With bootlegs, there is no such profit.

As a practical matter, studios gain much more by having Blockbuster buy thousands of rental copies from them than they lose from having some people buy a used copy (often months after the movie is first released). What they lose off bootlegs is a total loss.

The copyright laws are a compromise. For years, the maximum copyright was 56 years; now it's considerably longer. Congress and the courts balance the interests of authors and studios against the general public. To some extent, the exact boundaries of copyright law are arbitray. Time shifting is legal, no matter whether you watch something an hour later or years later, one time or 100 times. Selling recorded copyrighted materials is not.

However, no distinction is made for the source of the copyrighted material. There is no seperate provision for dvds, cable, etc. Renting the DVD of Casablanca and copying it is the same as copying it off Turner Classic Movies under the copyright law. Either way you have made a copy of the movie.
The scary FBI warning on tapes and DVDs is nothing new, just a reference to sections 501 and 506 of the copyright law which have been around for decades before home video and is a blanket provision covering all copyrighted material and sources. There are no seperate provisions under the law distinguishing what source the material was copied from.

Brace yourselves...Go to Amazon and look at how much World Trade Center on Blu-ray is going for.

Can you say ultra rare?

I see some sellers at about 10 bucks.

New? Where I'll buy some right now?

All this talk about bootlegging hurting film studios is a load of shit. Of course it hurts them, but compared to the hundreds of millions they make it's barely scratching the surface. It's just corporations doing what corporations do best maximizing profits, anything that stands in the way of increasing profits must be dealt with. So they lobby for stuff like SOPA and what not.

Take a look at Bringing out the Dead on Amazon now...it went from $3 New to $10 New to $20 and now it's at $30!!! It jumped from $10 to $20 overnight and since this thread has been created from $20 to $30. Do you even know how many copies were being sold by amazon sellers under $25? More then 50! people are buying them at a jaw dropping rate and it's not even a well known title.

http://www.amazon.com/Bringing-Out-D...9128148&sr=8-2

God damn this is turning out the be a great investment. Too bad I only bought 1 LOL

Ended up selling my unopened copy for $9.99 + 2.99 S+H on the bay. Not gonna miss this movie too much. I like it but I dont plan on watchin it anytime soon. I think I originally got this during a DeepDiscount BOGO for like $3.

Huh?

Lots of Bringing out of the Dead going for under $10 on eBay.

Oh, I get it. People are going by used prices on Amazon where retards put things up for insane prices and for some reason, people assume that's the real value.

Just because no one else has a copy of GI Jane on Blu-ray listed, and one idiot lists it for $50 does not mean it's the true "value". Are some of you guys actually believing this shit? Let me sell you some "rare" Blu-rays for $25 each. You can make a profit.

It's interesting reading all of the comments about piracy, everything from morally righteous standpoints to casual standpoints.

Copyright is not an easy black and white issue.

For instance, are you legally allowed to borrow your friends (legal) copy of a film and watch it by yourself? If you do, this causes the copyright holder to potentially lose a sale.

Is it only legal if you go over to your friends house and watch it at the same time together?

Is playing a copyrighted recorded song during a school Christmas show technically copyright theft as well? Is it considered "Fair Use"?

Are you guilty of copyright infringement by lip-synching to the Hall & Oates version of "Jingle Bell Rock"? Or was it just simply a lapse of judgement in musical taste when you were young?

The list can go on and on.

It's easy to get on ones righteous high-horse and declare theft but let's face it; we've all "stolen" content in one form or another by the letter of the law.

We're given tools like VCRs, PVRs and computers, whose primary function is to send and receive digital data. Big business has made a lot of money from technology and piracy will always be one of the trade-offs.

If someone has the last copy of GI Jane BD and someone buys it for $50 bucks then market value for that is $50 bucks. Just because you personally don't think something is worth that much doesn't mean it isn't for the rest of the world.

Star Wars E. 1 is selling for 30+ dollars on Amazon and it looks to be selling like hot cakes if the sales rank is to be believed. That means that DVD is worth 30+ dollars in it's current limited quantities.

I've always been baffled by this sort of attitude. Do you like J.S. Bach and dislike Beethoven because Bach was a humble man and Beethoven was arrogant? I don't care what an artist is like in their personal life, I'm only interested in the art.

I put this movie (60s DVD link) on my wish list at Gohastings. It was listed at $6.99 used and always out of stock. They now have it in stock but the price is now $79.98. I wonder how much they paid the person that sold it to them.