e-bayer selling pirate DVDs - what to do?

[glockjs]

do what u can and thats all you can do. while i dont agree with selling bootleg copys, well actually i hate thieves with a passion...so find him and cut his balls off.. but anyways, if most people are not smart enough to read the negative feedbacks, to their own deaths. i thought it was funnier than shtuff when i saw people selling vcd's on ebay(i mean c'mon now) and then you got the music industries sueing 11 yr old girls. just doesnt make sense. ebay is no holds bar, while the 11 yr old girl with no bad intentions gets it. guess you could scream til your voice is gone, still doesnt make a difference.

if it happens once, shame on you. if it happens twice, shame on me.

[ChrisX]

I wouldn't buy anything from ebay.

Read this: on eBay fraud

[indolikaa]

Find out who he is and where he lives. Send me a plane ticket and some bond money and I'll go kick his ass.

In all seriousness, be happy you got the refund, report it to eBay, and then consider yourself in good shape.

Unless your psychotic enough to play games with them (like I am) it's probably not worth the headache/nightmare/possible danger. You just can't predict whose on the other end anymore.

[The village idiot]

You just can't predict whose on the other end anymore.

Could be Indolikaa ready to kick your @$$. Brings up an interesting question, but that will go in a new thread.

[northcat_8]

Did the DVD work? Was the quality good?

Bootleg, legal? Seems to me that back a few years ago, during prohabition bootleggers were appreciated folks.

There are not degrees of breaking the law. Speeding is breaking the law just as much as murder...both are illegal. Granted the penalities are different but there is not question of legality.

It would seem to me that taping a movie off of HBO would be just as illegal as duplicating a rented tape of DVD and it probably is, however much like speeding 90% of the people can do it without getting caught because it is not a "high" priority crime.

E-bay is a buyer beware/garage sale place. That's just the way it is. And unless you take indolikaa's advice about all you can do about it is be mad. But he did give you a refund so I don't really see where you can be that mad about it.

Now that was his fault for not making it clear that the DVD was not an original and if he sold it under that falsehood then I can see how you might be mad about that...thinking you were getting an original...but lets not pretend that a high percentage of the folks that frequent this BB do not pirate DVDs or download movies and make them DVDs.

You can report him so other's know but other than that...you got your money back...count yourself lucky and move on.

[Capmaster]

About a year ago I bought a bootleg VHS copy of the miniseries Amerika. It had aired in 1987 and because of licensing disputes it only appeared briefly in VHS before being yanked. The network - ABC - never aired it again. There hasn't been a legitimate source for this miniseries for 15 years. Well ...I saw it listed on E-bay, knew it was bootlegged, but bought it anyways because I hadn't been able to find a legal source in the many years I had been scouring the web for it. I received it, captured and transferred to DVD, then tried to re-sell it on e-bay figuring if there's no commercial equivalent to harm sales of, no harm no foul, right? Well ...someone reported my item as being bootleg and e-bay sent me this official-sounding letter saying they don't endorse bootlegging and don't condone it or allow it. They had no answer for me when I informed them I had bought it on e-bay originally. So now I'm stuck with the VHS set of 5 tapes.

[BJ_M]

here is how they are getting around selling amerika on ebay ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3391852018&category=41669


"rental" -- of course this was never a rental movie ..

[Capmaster]

here is how they are getting around selling amerika on ebay ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3391852018&category=41669


"rental" -- of course this was never a rental movie ..

The one I bought was good-quality - recorded in SP mode, but the seller never disguised the source ...he said right there it was a good copy of the original. When I bought it I knew it was bootleg but I figured since the original wasn't available that maybe the copyright had run out. Otherwise how could he get away with advertising a bootleg like that. I was naive .... Still, I got an excellent capture of the 5 tapes and now I don't need to worry about it degrading with age.

[MrMungus]

What's it to you?

1. People who do stuff like this make it harder for legitimate businesses to make money. Don't think of Disney losing money; think of some guy running a small website that relies on affiliate revenue losing money.

2. It puts a spotlight on the problem which results in things like companies implementing more and more restrictive hardware. I seriously doubt that the companies that create audio and video would care if you were making copies for yourself, your friends, or your family but when they see people making a business out of it on ebay, it brings the hammer down on all of us.

[MrMungus]

If you want to really piss him off report every one of his auctions that you think are fake. Most of the time eBay will sent a template response out to him but they will also shut the auction down.

This is called "spamming while using eBay system". YOUR account will be suspended if YOU are caught. Bad, bad advice.

Post the negative feedback, and let others use their own common sense.

I've seen people kicked off ebay for selling knockoff purses and stuff. If there are complaints, especially about forgeries being sold, ebay will take action to avoid having to take (expensive) legal action.

[MrMungus]

here is how they are getting around selling amerika on ebay ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3391852018&category=41669


"rental" -- of course this was never a rental movie ..

Huh? How do you know that some small rental place didn't rent them?

[BJ_M]

i just do --



i also checked on a few newsgroups which confirmed it

[Capmaster]

here is how they are getting around selling amerika on ebay ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3391852018&category=41669


"rental" -- of course this was never a rental movie ..

Huh? How do you know that some small rental place didn't rent them?

It wasn't out there long enough. The licensing rights to the miniseries were sold to a couple of places and then quickly yanked. I don't remember the timeframe but it was very fast. POOF! It was gone with no commercial source for tapes. That's why it took me 16 years to find a copy worth capping. I even bought a bootleg about 2 years ago from a private party that was made in EP mode - it was unwatchable on tape and not even worth a capping attempt :P

[tgpo]

The miniseries was that good?

[Capmaster]

The miniseries was that good?

The only miniseries I saw that was better was North & South.

[MrMungus]

here is how they are getting around selling amerika on ebay ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3391852018&category=41669


"rental" -- of course this was never a rental movie ..

Huh? How do you know that some small rental place didn't rent them?

It wasn't out there long enough. The licensing rights to the miniseries were sold to a couple of places and then quickly yanked. I don't remember the timeframe but it was very fast. POOF! It was gone with no commercial source for tapes. That's why it took me 16 years to find a copy worth capping. I even bought a bootleg about 2 years ago from a private party that was made in EP mode - it was unwatchable on tape and not even worth a capping attempt :P

Didn't you say, "It had aired in 1987 and because of licensing disputes it only appeared briefly in VHS before being yanked."

If it was on VHS, it could have been bought and subsequently rented.

[Capmaster]

here is how they are getting around selling amerika on ebay ...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3391852018&category=41669


"rental" -- of course this was never a rental movie ..

Huh? How do you know that some small rental place didn't rent them?

It wasn't out there long enough. The licensing rights to the miniseries were sold to a couple of places and then quickly yanked. I don't remember the timeframe but it was very fast. POOF! It was gone with no commercial source for tapes. That's why it took me 16 years to find a copy worth capping. I even bought a bootleg about 2 years ago from a private party that was made in EP mode - it was unwatchable on tape and not even worth a capping attempt :P

Didn't you say, "It had aired in 1987 and because of licensing disputes it only appeared briefly in VHS before being yanked."

If it was on VHS, it could have been bought and subsequently rented.

I suppose technically it could have been, but I've never seen it offered and I've called everyone I can think of over the years trying to find it. None of the big chains here Blockbuster, etc. had ever even heard of it and couldn't find it in their master list. And I was very persistent until they checked it in the book. And I mean the managers and not just the HS kids working the registers. It was eerie - like the miniseries never existed. I was beginning to wonder if it was a long, elaborate dream that I had seen it Then I started seeing references to it and other fans in user groups who were not able to find it. This happened when the web took off. Then I started finding the occasional source, but it had already been sold ....or the web link was stale ...etc., etc. I sent out dozens of e-mails trying to track down the damn thing and was about to give up when I saw the one 2 years ago and the one a year ago on e-bay. I jumped on that and spent $70 using the "Buy Now" option instead of bidding because I didn't want it to get away. Whew! Finally