Import DVDs...?
 

One of my local Dvd/Game shops sells import dvds of movies that are sometimes months in advance of the US releases. For example, I had StarWars :E3 in late July and I have had Final Fantasy 7 : Advent Children for about a month now and its not due until late December (I believe its been pushed back till 06 now). The local Movie Gallery has been throwing a fit and tried to have him shut down but couldn't...hes legal someway. Where is he getting his movies from. Anyone have any ideas....

Thanks All

Those are bootlegs. They are illegal. He will probably eventually be arrested.

From criminals .... and selling them to people willing to support criminals.

They won't be arrested. There is this bootleg company somewhere in the world that mass produces these Asian dvds all over the USA (such as the recent early DVD releases of ADVENT CHILDREN, CUTIE HONEY, APPLESEED). It's like an actual company! And all the same non-big corporation DVD/comic shop/video game stores all have these same bootlegs from this bootleg place. If it's mass produced, I can't believe that the "law" doesn't know anything about it...

It's not that it's legal, it's that although companies love to complain about bootlegs, they do next to nothing about stopping them.

One of the rights holders of one of the bootlegs titles actually needs to bring action against the store, or there is nothing anyone will do about it. And that's probably not going to happen.

"The guy" told me that Movie Gallery contacted Fox Media about StarWars :E3. This was about 2 months ago. Fox called him up and asked if he had E3 and was renting/selling it. He admitted it and they asked him to stop. He agreed but continued to sell it and no more was said. I was just wondering where they were coming from because all the ones I have viewed are near DVD quality but lack any copy protection. Most even contain Dolby Digital and a few have DTS.....

The source? could be from the studio's insider person? screening copy? could be anything.