ddrknghtrtns

I think the MPAA is more concerned about the pirating of new theatrical and just released on blu-ray and DVD movies and features.

fumanstan

Having been to the State Fair as well, I agree. I thought the county ones, particularly the OC Fair that I go to every year, was far better. My girlfriend and I had thought the State Fair would be better based on name, but I guess not

mhg83

JeffTheAlpaca

Who cares and don't buy them!

I bet if DVDs were a lot cheaper more people would probably buy them.

Gizmo

If this is the way for me to get Pete and Pete Season 3, SHOW ME THE BOOTLEGS!

Numanoid

^ That's not hard to find.

Flicker

Several years ago there was a vendor selling "Song Of The South" and the old "Amos 'N Andy" series on DVDs at a seafood festival in lower Alabama. I haven't seen him (or others) since however I did not go last year. Wish now I had bought the "Amos 'N Andy" sets.

PhantomStranger

There are still bootleg DVD sellers on the Net, offering pretty much every show that will never see an official release. It's not hard finding them if you know the right keywords on Google.

Alan Smithee

Might have been the same guy I saw, though what made me try to turn him in was a lot of his stuff was copies of legitimate DVDs with scanned covers. Again, I'm convinced that all the threats against copying which have been on video media since its inception are empty- though if I tried doing it myself, I'd probably be in jail by the end of the day.

SterlingBen

I just saw the guy you mention at the Tulsa State Fair. Saw a man interested in SOTS then he saw the price, laughed and walked away.

Wish we got Weird Al out here but no cigar.

Abob Teff

You wanna know how to get this jabrone? They pull a VHS, you pull a DVD. He sends one of yours to the video store, you send one of his to the Redbox. *That's* the *Chicago* way!

Alan Smithee

But he filmed "UHF" in Tulsa! (However that was not one of the bootlegged movies sold by this guy.)

EddieMoney

Nobody buys DVDs anymore. This seller is an idiot.

Alan Smithee

Well, guess what? State Fair is going on again this year, I wasn't planning on going but my friend from out of town (who has worked for Disney) was here and there was nothing else to do, so we went and THIS GUY WAS THERE YET AGAIN! I finally confronted him this time. I told him his Song of the South disc was obviously a fake- he said "It's imported." I said "From where, China?" "No, England." I pointed to the "NTSC" indication on the back cover and I said "If this were from England, it'd be in PAL, not NTSC and most likely region coded." He started looking like he wished he could just disappear. I picked up another disc and told him the cover was obviously scanned and printed on a computer, he just played dumb saying "I dunno about that." I then said there was a discussion about him on the internet and said many people were asking how he's managed to get away with it for 3 years in a row now- he said "Nobody's complained so far- been doing this for years."

So I finally took the advice of a previous poster and started yelling "BOOTLEGS! GET YOUR ILLEGAL BOOTLEGS RIGHT HERE FOLKS!" but nobody batted an eye.

Today I called the MPAA again and they seemed less than concerned, they just said "We'll have to look into it again," solidifying my suspicion that their organization is really just a big joke. I called someone at Cal Expo in charge of the vendors and they seemed surprised, saying that his stuff looked legitimate to them but they'd take another look at it. Finally I called Disney and they actually seemed interested, so MAYBE they just might send someone over to check him out. (He was also selling copies of "So Dear to My Heart" which has only been issued through the Disney Movie Club, his cover was home-made rather than scanned from that disc.)

DVD Josh

So your landlord's workers rat you out and you rat others out. You are a real gem of a person Alan. Maybe you didn't get that internship not because they couldn't clear you in time but because they found out you were the Edward Snowden of bootleg DVDs.

Hokeyboy

Did you also remind the math teacher than she forgot to assign her geometry assignment right as bell rang at the end of class?

fumanstan

Good thing you don't go to swap meets and flea markets. You'd spend a whole day on the phone trying to rat people out.

My Other Self

What's funny is when I saw the fair was starting this week, my first thought was to bump this very thread to see if you were going to track this guy down again.

But you already did it for me.

You have way too much fucking time on your hands.

dan30oly

That is completely unfair to Edward Snowden.

Please take it back.

Alan Smithee

More of a gem than this guy who is selling counterfeit stuff out in the open, charging people the same price for a burned copy as they would pay for a legitimate one and telling people they ARE legitimate? I don't "rat people out" for casually making copies, but I just couldn't believe this guy was selling SO many of them in a public place for this long. It really shows how many people can't tell a scanned copy of a cover from a real one also, not to mention that the anti-piracy hotline that's been around longer than DVDs have (1-800-NO-COPYS) is completely useless, and all those warnings that we've been forced to sit through for decades are really just to scare us.


I go to flea markets all the time, and I've NEVER seen such a blatant rip-off artist as this guy. The worst I've ever seen at a flea market was a guy selling DVDs of recent movies in paper sleeves, most likely camcorded in theaters, and another selling CDs with scanned-copied covers, unsealed with CD-Rs inside. I only saw each of those guys ONE time as well, they were at least smart enough to quit while they were ahead, as I've heard flea market sellers DO eventually get busted if they're selling counterfeit goods. I've also heard that if you sell counterfeit media on Ebay, all it takes is ONE report from someone to get your account deleted. DVDTalk and other forums with "for sale" sections all have zero-tolerance policies for anyone selling copied discs.

If I had the balls this guy has, I could be doing the same thing and making a few bucks off it (and of course explaining exactly how to copy DVDs has always been the most verboten subject on forums like this.) I've never tried it because the consequences didn't seem nearly worth it, but seeing this guy getting away with it for so long makes me wonder if I shouldn't have tried it in more desperate times.

Put it this way- I'm sure at least a FEW people on this forum can at least tell right away whether a DVD is pressed or burned- wouldn't you feel the least bit ripped-off if you'd bought a disc you THOUGHT was legit but you found out it was a copy after you got it home? Don't even think of the greedy movie studios, just think of yourself and this guy making money from it.

Thank you for reminding me of the time in high school when I'd forgotten to do my homework assignment, and miraculously the teacher didn't ask for it during class, and then someone asked in the last few minutes "Aren't you going to collect the homework?"

fumanstan

So you're only upset because this guy's bootlegs look more authentic? I see bootleg and copied movies all the time at flea markets; just seems like you shouldn't single this guy out if you're going to go the high and mighty route and causing a scene. I guess if it means patting yourself on the back though...

Honestly at the end of the day, groups like the MPAA don't give a shit about small time people like this because it's going to happen no matter what and it's too much time and effort to try and stop guys selling copies of movies on every corner of the street. I imagine they're far more concerned about digital piracy over stuff like this now.

DVD Polizei

Yeah, I would think digital piracy, you can easily stop hundreds of thousands of users...versus some guy who sells to maybe a few dozen people a day at a local flea market.

Deftones

it's odd that the MPAA isn't really doing anything. i've dealt with them before on a case. they sent out a private investigator multiple times to a swap meet to catch a guy selling bootleg dvds. granted, this was years ago, but it seems weird they wouldn't at least investigate it.

MLBFan24

I was at the fair last weekend, saw the vendor, and was reminded of this thread.

But that's about it...haha

It was too hot to care. I just needed an ICEE (gets reminded of another thread...)

PhantomStranger

The MPAA is not really concerned with enforcing anti-piracy tactics on a street level. It would be too expensive and impractical to enforce on a local level.

The entire anti-piracy efforts as seen on Hollywood media (flashing the big FBI sign before every video and on every copy) is mostly a marketing campaign meant to ensure that law-abiding citizens highly value Hollywood's content. It is intended to work on a subliminal level, hoping to keep as much of the population as it can from pirating their movies. The MPAA knows their anti-piracy trappings (a hot line, various PSAs, etc.) does nothing against people intent on criminal activity.