posted on January 13, 2002 06:04:38 PM new
Our local video store copys any video you want for $3.00 and nobody ever stopped them. Heck even the town cop buys them! I could not believe the studios charge $75-$80 for each new movie! No wonder they copy them.
posted on January 14, 2002 05:12:02 PM new
A gal sold me a pirated La Femme Nikita MP3 on Yahoo. I said thanks but no thanks, you have no right to sell this yatta yatta...I reported her to the USPS for mail fraud, to Yahoo for pirated music and to USA networks for Copyright infringement. Not a single one of them cared.
I asked a seller on BidVille recently whether her snowboarding videos were originals or copies before I bid, she had no problem telling me they were copies. I contacted the original producers of the film and gave them the auction link. The secretary e-mailed me saying her boss would want to do something about it, but they never did. Contacted BidVille CS, heard nothing..of course.
So..what more is a person to do? Nobody seems to care.
posted on January 14, 2002 05:43:25 PM new
Are the loses acceptable by the movie industry? When a general orders a beach or hill to be taken in a war he knows that he will lose X amount of men. Are these pirated copies the acceptable loses in the war scenario? The loses are really tiny when you compare them to Asia where very few legit copies are ever even sold. The movie industry has a problem on their hand and they must deal with it.
posted on January 14, 2002 05:44:55 PM new
It's also BS ... no video rental store would risk their business and do this.
I hate to break your heart but many mom and pop stores are doing this and they must to survive. Cindy charges $3.00 if you bring the tape, and $5.00 if you need a tape. I used to be in the video business paying $75.00 or more for each cassette. I got them from Baker & Taylor, MVC(star video), Statz, etc. The only people they bust are major operations and my sales rep told me they are forced to do that. You can read about busts in video store magazine, and video business. I got out of the business when the DVD's started. If not for ebay I would have 6,000 cassettes collecting dust.
posted on January 14, 2002 05:51:17 PM new
bidsbids if you ever go to NYC you will see it is a huge business. They are set up right along the street selling the stuff and the cops dont care. I saw so many selling bootleg videos, sunglasses, watches, and on and on. I purchased a copy of titanic months before it was released. The studios dont care about it or they would do something. They send screeners out to video stores and those people sell them to pirate corporations. I have a huge library of screeners, posters, POP, etc. All of it can be easily bootlegged.
posted on January 14, 2002 07:38:41 PM new
The movie industry must be making money if the can pay Arnold S $30 million for Terminator3. Why anyone individual would crusade for the movie industry is beyond me. Maybe they have an extensive collection of movies that goes down in value with the continued pirating of the movies.
posted on January 14, 2002 08:21:05 PM new
Hey blairwitch ... wanna buy a bridge If you think I, or anyone who knows the video biz believes what you are saying about "many" of these Mom & Pop video joints, then have I got a deal for you ...
bidsbids ... next time you have to pay $12.00 to see a movie in a theatre, or pay $30.00 for a DVD that costs about 25 cents to produce, ask yourself again if the pirating and bootlegging has an effect on the business. Part of what you pay goes towards making up what the crooks steal. If we all remain apathetic about these so-called minor and unsolvable problems, they will grow and grow. Unlike you, I have chosen to take a stand regardless of how successful I may or may not be. If I can stop even one bootlegger, I'm winning my battle.
Just because something illegal is done openly in New York, or on Bidville, or on Yahoo, it doesn't make it any less illegal.
[ edited by RB on Jan 14, 2002 08:29 PM ]
posted on January 15, 2002 12:30:54 AM new
Do you ever ask yourself why the industry doesn't take a firmer stand against the corruption? A couple of guys making a low wage without benefits could turn in a huge amount of these bad auctions. The auctions don't care, so a few lower eschelon lawyers could pressure the auctions or local authorities to prosecute a few cases. The industry could do a lot towards slowing down these pirated copies but they seem to not do anything. Why?
posted on January 15, 2002 06:10:05 AM new
bidsbids ... in fact, they are.
If you check the anti-piracy information pages at the MPAA, for example, you will see that the industry has busted several large scale operations during the past few months.
Like every other big business, these guys spend their efforts where it will do the most good. There are only so many hours in a day and it makes more sense for them to use these hours to shutdown a large scale duplicating operation that a "Mom & Pop" bootlegger.
But, they do listen to us little guys. During my tenure at Yahoo (the pre-fee days when they did care), I was responsible for stopping 14 bootleggers on their venue (everytime they sent me a thank you they included a running tally!). Now, of course, with the fees thing, they would rather collect the listing and selling fees from their bootleggers than tell them to take a hike.
I just have to find other ways to make my point ...
posted on January 16, 2002 09:20:00 AM new
Good luck Buzzoon. I have a feeling that the electronc evolution is proceeding so fast right now that in a few very short years all new/old movies and music will be sold only in a downloadable form with no hardcopies needed. The local BlockBuster stores will become shoe repair stores and such. The movie & music industries are losing mega bucks and they will find a way to make it untamperable. Money makes the world go round.
posted on January 16, 2002 09:44:52 AM new
bidsbids ... you could be right. But on the plus side, with digital encryption, it's going to be lot harder for the bootleggers to do their thing. In the very near future, you are going to see stuff aired on teevee that cannot be recorded off air using your standard VCR.
In the meantime though, if I see something blatant, I will try to stop it. It's not just the thievery, but in many cases, the unsuspecting buyer gets a junk copy thinking they were buying an original, and there is nothing that buyer can do about it.
posted on January 16, 2002 11:14:06 AM new
Once bitten, twice shy. The auction format does leave buyers open for getting taken. The only possible recourse the taken buyer may have on an auction site is a charge back if they paid by credit card or a credit card through an e payment system like PP. Even that may not work as the bogus seller may only take money orders or fly the coup if they do take PP. In a way, if enough buyers get taken the word of mouth news of the bogus tapes may cut into the amount of bogus sales. Bad way to get the word out though.
posted on January 16, 2002 01:00:37 PM new
It's not just tapes that are being bootlegged on the auction venues. These racketeers are also peddling bogus CDs, VCDs, DVDs, computer software, books, art, autographs and on and on. The word-of-mouth thing doesn't work that well as it is so easy for a bootlegger to change IDs on a regular basis.
My best advice is ask lots of questions prior to placing a bid, and if something doesn't seem right, don't bid. The best way to slow this sleaze down is to stop buying their garbage.
posted on January 16, 2002 04:08:01 PM new
I see your point clearer now. I was on a crusade of my own about 3 or 4 years ago at ebay over fake autographs. I'm a big autograph collector and have thousand of autographs. Many sellers on ebay were ( still are ) selling fake autographs either knowningly or unknowingly. Back then you could email the bidders and warn them and many sellers started using Private Auction formats to shield the bidders from people trying to warn them. I would often see a facsimile autograph on a photo and I would then post the same exact photo with the false signature ( celebs often send out the same exact fake photos to thousands of fans ) as an auction in the same ebay category and write FACSIMILE all over the title and description and warn bidders that way.
In that regard we have a lot in common. Ebay made it too difficult to warn bidders so I give up the fight. Fight on with your crusade. Good luck.
posted on January 18, 2002 08:50:58 AM new
Hey blairwitch ... wanna buy a bridge
No the only thing I want to buy is a dual deck VCR/DVD. Just think they actually make it easier to copy movies(the same industry who claims to worry about copies). Now my next quest is to move my cassettes to DVD. Just think you can record off the TV on DVD and it is good forever! I have hundreds of screeners in my garage taking up space.
If you think I, or anyone who knows the video biz believes what you are saying about "many" of these Mom & Pop video joints, then have I got a deal for you ...