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Author
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Topic: A visit to the local bootlegger
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Paul Mayer
Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under!
Posts: 3836
From: Albuquerque, NM
Registered: Feb 2000
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posted 07-26-2003 02:09 PM
From this week's Las Vegas Weekly:
Ill Gotten Bootlegs--Visit a cineplex? Why, when you can catch current movies--on bootlegged DVDs?
The pirate didn't look nearly as deadly, devious or delicious as Johnny Depp. But, sitting at the prow of his booth at the Fantastic Indoor Swap Meet, this man—talking on his cell phone all the while—proved to be the far craftier buccaneer. And making plunder of Depp and the other pirates of the Caribbean turned out to be only one of his fantastic feats. Some of this man's other miracles (displayed on televisions arranged around the shop): He'd plucked Sinbad from the Seven Seas, kicked the ass of the hot-blond Terminator, bagged Charlie's Angels and even found Nemo. Holding the bootlegged treasures in my hands, their allure was irresistible. I knew it was wrong, but I needed some of this desert pirate's ill-gotten booty.
"How much?"
"Three for $39. I don't charge tax." Of course you don't. I chose six.
Things got dicey when I asked for a receipt.
"You don't need one; I guarantee every item." What a prince!
"But if one of these doesn't work, how will you know I got it here?"
"I am the only one who sells these." Of course you are.
A few hours later, I was back in the comfort of my apartment with DVD versions, all in professional-looking packaging, of the hottest summer blockbusters.
Then the problems started. A close examination of the boxes quickly revealed the non- Hollywood origins of my new DVDs. The description offered of Disney's latest effort began: "Den Kleinen Fisch Nemo…." Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was not rated. And why wasn't Blonde capitalized on the cover of Reese Witherspoon's new movie?
But those were nothing compared to the flaws revealed when I actually tried playing the discs. It took a dozen tries to get my player to stop telling me "No Disc" when I inserted Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Then, once I got it going, the disc played for a few minutes and skipped back to the first scene. After the problem repeated itself a few times, I found a way to scan through the rough spot and was able to watch the rest of the movie. None of the others skipped around like that, but all of them contained some obvious and distracting defect. On my version of T3, in every scene where the lighting was dark, the movie turned near invisible. Despite being clearly labeled as the Widescreen Edition, my Pirates of the Caribbean seemed to be missing a bit from the sides as well as the bottom of the frame. Whenever the action heated up, the motions began to blur and trail like I was watching a fight scene in a Matrix future instead of a sword battle meant to replicate the past. The result at times could be hard to follow.
Still, there were compensations. I didn't have to check theater listings. I didn't have to drive, walk or wait in a ticket line. I was able to watch Pirates of the Caribbean without commercials, previews or irritating children sitting next to me. When I felt like running to the bathroom, I hit pause, and when I felt like a snack, I discovered my refrigerator offered far more reasonable prices than any theater concession on planet Earth. Best of all: 20 minutes into Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas, I discovered just how much easier it is to eject a DVD than it is to walk out of a theater. That provided such a sense of empowerment that I did the same thing 10 minutes into Legally Blonde 2 just for the thrill it gave me.
My verdict: Given a choice, I will never go to a movie theater again, ever. Of course, I am not a movie connoisseur and couldn't even define cinematography. I don't own a large screen TV or a home-entertainment system. (The truth is that if I had any sort of technical fetish for movies, I would find these bootlegs unwatchable and a desecration.) The audio was fine and at worst the picture quality was like the occasional vagaries of TV without cable. Over time, these sorts of bootlegs will almost certainly mature technically and the movie industry might face similar woes to the music business. Still, middle America watches movies, and could suburbanites really be comfortable stealing movies as readily as their kids file-share Eminem songs?
I called my mom, a lawyer, to tell her about my discovery. To my surprise, she wasn't at all surprised.
"Oh, yes, there is a store out here that sells them. We got My Big Fat Greek Wedding when it was still in theaters. The picture was a bit odd at times, but the sound was fine."
She asked me to mail her my bootlegs.
"But don't you have a problem with that? Isn't it stealing?"
"I don't know. You paid for it, right? It's not really my area of law." Answered like a lawyer.
And all around the country, the real pirates are smiling.
Contributing editor Richard Abowitz covers entertainment for the Weekly.
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Randy Stankey
Film God
Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99
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posted 07-28-2003 10:19 PM
There is really only one good reason to copy a movie to/from DVD. That reason is "Geek Value". People who like to play or experiment with technology might like the challenges and learning experiences gotten from "tinkering" with multimedia content on their computers.
Face it, there just ain't no way that the quality of something that you copied is going to compare to the original. Not by a long shot. Furthermore, it takes a lot of effort to copy and burn a movie from one format to another. If you think you're getting something for nothing then you are sorely mistaken!
I like to copy parts of movies and DVDs onto my computers and then play with them. Sometimes I make frame grabs of my favorite scenes. Sometimes I make sound clips and turn them into alert sounds. My computer's alert sound is, "Nee!" (As in the Knights who say...") I clipped it from the DVD that I bought. Other times I take video clips and make them into "Mini Movies". I might take my favorite scenes from several different movies and edit them together into a new (hopefully funny or entertaining) movie.
Whatever the source; whatever the result; I play with my creations for a while and then move on to the next thing. I show them to my friends; my friends sho their creations to me and we laugh about them. When the fun is over, most of them are deleted and a new crop is born.
Virtually every piece of material that we copy comes from a source that we are legally entitled to possess. It's usually from a DVD or video that we own. Sometimes it's from something we rent. Since 90%+ of the things we do eventually get deleted and they never leave our personal sphere of control I don't believe there is anything wrong with what we do.
Now... If somebody is copying material that they DON'T have the legal right to posess in the first place, be that material a DVD a film, a video, a CD or an MP3 then their ass(es) should be grass, legally speaking.
If you have the legal right to posess a piece of multimedia material then you also have the right to "manage" that material on all the equipment that you own that is capable of "handling" it, provided that you maintain control of it and you don't use it to make money or pecuniary gains.
If you felt the need to make 50 copies of a DVD and then rub them on your bare bum, that is your right. If you let others rub those copies on their bare bums then you are wrong.
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