MichaelEl
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- May 10, 2006
- Messages
- 199
Suppose someone has a long OOP DVD of a film and this DVD is only available on eBay for hundreds of dollars. Would you think it wrong for that person to make a copy of the DVD and give it to an elderly friend who really loved that film? This is all that a lot of these "bootleggers" are doing, except that they're charging a few bucks for the trouble of making a copy. While what they're doing may technically be illegal, they're not really making any money from these "bootlegs" and are making fans of these old films happy. I think at some point you have to stop being Inspector Javert and just allow yourself to be a human being.Kevin EK said:We seem to have gotten to a point where people become unhappy because various movies aren't available on DVD or online platforms and they're understandably frustrated. But the solution isn't to find an illegal copy and distribute it. There are simpler and more legal solutions. One is to buy a previously made videotape of the movie, usually in a collection of such things. Another is to see it on TCM or a channel like that - and I don't see a problem with someone taping a program airing on television. The problem comes when someone tries to distribute that tape, say by making 100 copies, or by making a digital copy and then putting it up on the internet.
Can people even make a copy of a Blu-Ray at this point? Even if they can, the cost of a recordable Blu-Ray disk is probably higher than what a bootlegger could reasonably charge for their "product.".With the advent of DVD and HD media, we've gotten to a point where if you make a copy of say, a Blu-ray of Star Wars, you've got something that's practically broadcast quality. Making copies of that item and putting it up for sale or sharing on the internet means that the studio is trying to sell a product while someone else is offering the identical thing for free. And yes, that's stealing.
They're doing this with films that are literally taking in BILLIONS of dollars of revenue. Should we really be losing sleep over a tiny number of people who download a poor quality camcorder recording of a summer blockbuster? It's really not costing anyone anything, unless you consider it a major disaster that an expected BILLION dollars of revenue came up short a few hundred bucks. Of course I can see where new artists would have a complaint about copying, but it seems to me that people like George Lucas and Paul McCartney ought to be giving their works away for free at this point. (They're not.)The bootleg outfits that put out these DVDs from Korea and elsewhere are getting their material from a variety of sources. Sometimes they're just taking old laserdisc or videotape copies and transferring them over - either by using a machine or by simply camcording the movie. Sometimes they're taking a camcorder into a movie theater. Sometimes they're getting access to digital files of a movie before it's released. Sometimes they're copying a screener DVD of a movie.