I didn't know they were bootlegs!

[sacajaweeda]

Nobody on eBay would knowingly or intentionally sell you an illegal copy or bootleg of a DVD. That's against their rules you know. What you probably had sent to you was probably just an honest mistake, the seller probably just sent you his backup of his original by accident.

Is being ignorant a learned trait, or were you just born that way?
Oh, I have a bridge in San Fransisco to sell you, if you actually BELIEVE what you just posted.

You ever heard of a lil' thing called sarcasm?

[andkiich]

So I guess "The 5th Element" that I bought at Best Buy 6 months ago is a bootleg since it is only a DVD-5.

Broad generalizations cannot apply here.

I myself would consider anything bought from a source outside the country subject to being bootleg. I do not know what is legitimate in China/Malaysia/Russia. It could be that these DVD's are legitimate in that region.

If you ever have any doubts about somethings authenticity, then save your money, walk away from the sale. You are the one with the money, you have the power. A good lesson can be learned from this.

[crazeplaya]

Beware of any DVDs that are coming from China also, because DVD hasen't been licensed by the Chinese goverment. So it is pretty likely any DVDs from there will be bootleg

p.s. You weren't being sarcastic, you just can't admit you made a mistake

[zworg2]

It is VERY easy to be taken in by bootlegs.

I have a lot of experience on eBay, having sold, sold for others and bought thru the site. (i have over 1000 feedbacks).

When i bought bulk, i checked carefully for any kind of illegal copy. about 5% of the stock i purchased was unsaleable and a significant proportion of this was copies.

On two seperate occasions, i found that the disc i had sold was a bootleg, and when it was drawn to my attention a full refund was offered.

Although i was an honest seller, i still got caught out. People do make mistakes, but usually copies are sold intentionally

And then there are all those dihonest sellers, clearly flaunting eBay's TOS (terms of service), by selling copies.

Some are small time people making a quick buck, but enough are businesses trying to make as much profit as possible.

If your seller wont issue a refund, report him to eBay.

The safest, securest and MOST reliable way to determine is a disc is a copy is to run it thru the computer and get info regarding manufacturer, origin and protection on the disc.

Dont worry whatis on the box, or jacket, or label of the disc, stick it in th drive and find out that way.

Zworg2

[teegee420]

p.s. You weren't being sarcastic, you just can't admit you made a mistake

Anyone who has read some of sacajaweeda's posts would know that he is quite masterful in the art of sarcasm. I oughta know. We smell our own. :P

[sacajaweeda]

p.s. You weren't being sarcastic, you just can't admit you made a mistake

Sure I can!

Can you?

[SeeingMole]

As most people has mentioned, you can identify bootlegs as follows:

1. Lack of CSS encryption and regional coding. All major studio release are encrypted and regional coded.

2. No studios emphasize on whenever the DVD is 5 or 9. Any labels on the cover or the disc of being DVD9 or 5 are bootlegs.

There are plenty of bootlegs which are identical copies of originals and they got quite a high quality artwork screen on the disc as well, so it can be very hard to tell at a glance if it's a bootleg or not.

I bought Indiana Jones box set and The Lord of the Rings The Two Towers Special Extended DVD Edition and they were pretty high quality bootlegs.
They even came with the box and the LOTR box was complete with gold prints and all.

[noki]

No studios emphasize on whenever the DVD is 5 or 9. Any labels on the cover or the disc of being DVD9 or 5 are bootlegs.

in a way they do...they tell you that the dvd is a dual layer disc if it is D9, but do NOT mention the letters D9 itself.

[MJS]

Anyway, you must be referring to those Malaysia sellers on ebay, you know those ebay sales of '50 dvds' or '100 dvds' for $50/120 Do you really expect them to be originals? lol. Most are very very old films

The fellow who sold me the high quality bootleg is based in Malaysia. He sells individual DVD's of mostly recent movies. His DVD's seem to usually sell for between $5 and $7 (except some Disney title's which attract higher bids) with a $5 additional charge for S&H per DVD. He describes the DVD's as Region 1.

Is $10 to $12 the going rate for a quality bootleg these days?

-MJS

[D.A.R.J.R.]

bootlegs made in malaysia are usually gold on the bottom, are true dvd-9 made in a press and do have silk screened labels. I have bought some of these on ebay too. (they are normally 2 of our commercial dvd-9's compressed together)

try www.animegod.com they are the ones who are making them, its wrong but I dont think its illegal becuase of malaysias copyright laws

ps: I dont buy anything off of them anymore because the quality is aweful on some and its illegal.

[OmegaSupreme]

"DVD9" is a well known high quality bootleg brand in Asia. These are pressed discs and usually contain all the bonus features. Ironically, the success of "DVD9" in Asia has prompted lesser bootleggers to hijack the logo. So you might have a bootlegged "DVD9"

[SeeingMole]

They are illegal in Malaysia too. Copyright laws are the same all over the world. It's how strict the laws are enforced in different countries which is the difference.

US$ 10-14 for bootlegs!!??
Maybe I should start selling them on ebay too. :P

I can get DVD9 bootlegs for around US$ 5. The wholesale price is a whole lot cheaper too. Probably around $ 2. The reason why the retail price is so much higher than wholesale is because the vendors needs to pay quite a lot in bribes.

Malaysia makes the best bootlegs. Quality of discs and cover artworks are almost the same as original. They are then again often copied by Chinese pirates. But most Chinese discs are DVD5. Often they''ll label their disc as DVD9 anyway when it's really just a DVD5 disc.

It's ironic that even among the pirates, there's a problem with pirates copying each other.

Many internal cam or screener DVDs has been put quite an efforts on them too. They'd managed to get the movie translated and made Malaysian/Chinese/Thai subtitles on them. Usually the substitles sucks bad and can be hilarious at times. I remember one movie they translated "freeze" to be like "freezing cold" instead of "stop".

[overloaded_ide]

The bootlegs I bought off greed-bay were silver bottomed.

Hold it to the light and see your hand through it. Mostly all really old movies, First Alfred hitchcoks and other oldies. Probably public domain mostly anyway. However what ticked me off was Dean Martian and Jerry Lewis "At War with the Army" was so full of macro blocks and fuzz and other problems looked like a real moron did that one!
Really ticked me off since that was one I really wanted! I never made a VHS-DVD converison backup any where that bad myself, not even my very first one!

Of course had I known I was getting bootleg crap I would not have bought it! But yea this guy/business had tons of great feedback for DVD sales too. Till I got the disks I was thinking old stock of discontinued movies and factory seconds that didn't make the grade. But see through disks???
Silver bottom, mostly black tops look like silk screen titles.

So where does a person buy DVD R silver bottom disks?? I consider the disks to be too low a quality to actly be stamped, but maybe they are?

At $1 each, I geuss I got what I paid for, and since most the movies cannot be had for any price on VHS or DVD, at least I got alot of Public domain stuff I wanted.

[indolikaa]

When I crank up the bootlegging facility here, we always use DivX and burn to CD-Rs made by CMC. And I'm not talking about Memorex or CompUSA, I'm talking about the 100% generic brand, and only the orange-dye discs that burn at 2X. Once you burn them they turn to a shit-brown color that would make you the envy of any diaper-changing mum.

And I always code them for Region 6 only. My friends in the Chinese Ministry of State always enjoy a little humor with their annual dose of Ishtar and Gigli.

I used to have sacajaweeda do all my disc artwork but the bastard's gotten so cheap he's gone from color laser to a 9-pin dot matrix and that just don't convey the feel of quality. And jeex is no longer on the payroll because all he does is smear ink on the discs and call it artwork, so I've been reduced to renting the DVDs from the video store and scanning the disc image myself. But that's OK because I've got my own color laser and I care enough about quality that I won't subcontract anymore.

I've been getting complaints that people don't appreciate me mailing the discs to their real address with their real names on the envelopes. And lately there's been some discontent that I use FedEx and require an adult signature at delivery. Something about leaving a paper trail, I don't know why people suddenly think Amerika is Amerika only for the rich.

I mean, if you're not going to make quality DVD bootlegs, why even bother going through the hassle of selling them on eBay?

[teegee420]

Words to live by, friend. *wipes tear* I swear I heard the Star Spangled Banner in my head when reading that post.

[indolikaa]

Ah, life is good after the first cup of morning Java, isn't it?

[lordsmurf]

A bootleg would copy with explorer.

So would at least half non-bootlegs.

Anyway, you must be referring to those Malaysia sellers on ebay, you know those ebay sales of '50 dvds' or '100 dvds' for $50/120 Do you really expect them to be originals? lol. Most are very very old films, Im surprised they are even worth that much.

Many, MANY Mayasia (Malaya) titles are legit. Time Warner releases many shows out there, things never seen in US or Europe. The SMURFS is one show in this situation, because it's one of the few places where HB still controls the release/broadcast rights to Season 9 (NBC owns them in the USA). I think Australia gets them on cable too.

If your seller wont issue a refund, report him to eBay.

Think about this. You buy, copy it, then demand a refund? Doesn't fly, not even with local stores. Once you open it, it's yours. The customer is not always right, in fact, often just misinformed.

try www.animegod.com

This guy is a thief, demands payment via Western Union and then makes no guarantees you'll ever get your product. And some of his stuff is, actually, quite legit. You have to know about what you buy. You need to do your own research, not just trust them.

Dean Martian and Jerry Lewis "At War with the Army"

I actually think this IS public domain. Probably through some fluke in not renewing the copyright (complex thing I don't understand fully either). It's most commonly released by a company that specializes in public domain works. I bought it from Fry's a month or so ago, had some macroblock issues, but it's 100% legit.

[zworg2]

zworg2 wrote:
If your seller wont issue a refund, report him to eBay.

Think about this. You buy, copy it, then demand a refund? Doesn't fly, not even with local stores. Once you open it, it's yours. The customer is not always right, in fact, often just misinformed

If you gonna quote me, dont do it out of context.

My point was, if the item you have been sent is not that which was advertised and you ordered then, send it back, request a refund and report the seller to eBay.

Although those on high at eBay have what appears to be a relative lack of concern regarding the details of the the goings on at the sharp end of the process, it IS still worth reporting the seller.

Zworg2

[overloaded_ide]

Yep, I geuss when you think about it, if it is public domain then it is legit for anyone to make copies of it. Even me.
I just wish the quality was good enough to be worth making a copy! This one I got was really bad!

Anyway, that's probably what I have, a bunch of low quality copies of public domain movies. The public domain part is fine with me, I wanted old movies, the ones not sold in stores or often seen on TV. I did want the quality high enough to be worth watching though!

I never made one that bad myself.
Oh well.