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Ebay sales (1 Viewer)

Greg_M

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Going out on a limb here, the DVD Journal used to feature a weekly update on discontined DVD titles with the highest auction bids at Ebay.

Wondering if any one ever put together a listing of the highest bid VHS tapes for films never released/discontinued on cassette. Most of the titles were taped off of tv or cable so they weren't bottleg copies, and were allowable by Ebay.

Thought the studios might like to know what's sitting in their valut's that's selling for top dollar elsewhere.:star:
 

Jeff Kleist

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Most of the titles were taped off of tv or cable so they weren't bottleg copies, and were allowable by Ebay
Umm, no. Selling stuff taped off of TV is just as illegal as doing your own run at a manufacturing plant. Time-shifting is only legal for PRIVATE use. Not for sale.
 

Greg_M

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If these titles are illegal how come Ebay hasn't closed them down? Could it be there too many illegal tapes for Ebay to keep track of?
 

JeffMc

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Ebay does not acively 'police' their site to look for illegal tapes and such. They only investigate when an infringing item is brought to their attention. In most cases, the person contacting them MUST be the legal rights owner of that property to have ebay take any action and close it down. Otherwise, ebay doesn't really do anything since anyone and anybody could complain about any item. So it's really up to the studio, producer, or other party wgo is being infringed upon to speak up and take action by contacting ebay. I believe the rights owner must also be registered in their 'vero' program to verify that they are who they say they are. Unfortunately, the studios and many other parties don't have the time or energy to devote to stopping the rampant bootlegging going on at ebay. Or maybe they aren't aware that their property is being stolen. It all sucks, of course, and it doesn't look like any of this will be changing anytime soon.

And, yes, taping movies or tv shows off broadcast and selling them is ILLEGAL. Unless they are public domain, of course, but public domain properties don't have much "value" to collectors and it's not the kind of stuff that most of these scumbags are selling on ebay.
 

Jeff Kleist

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The MPAA and other groups care very much about cleaning up Ebay, but as was said it's virtually impossible for them to catch even close to them all
 

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