The Times does an article on anime and piracy
- Thread starter Arbalest
- Start date
I used to buy bootleg anime without knowing it was bootleg in the past. The boxes were ok quality, almost on par with some of the official cardboard fold-out box sets I have seen but not quite. The video quality was bad though. I didn't notice at first because I had a crappy small tv at uni but when I played them on a larger screen tv at home they were pixelated because the makers had compressed the video so much to fit it on as few disks as possible. Naivety. I brought official releases to replace most of them though.
HdE
Comic Book Guy
See? That's the problem, innit!
Something I've found is common to people who are buying / have bought bootlegs in the past is that a good number of 'em didn't KNOW they were doing it at the time!
Admittedly, it's pretty easy to find out what attributes identify a bootleg as opposed to an official release, but to the casual observer, some bootlegs look pretty danged legit.
I talk to people about this particular problem on a pretty regular basis. I've lost count of how many people have said to me 'Whaaaaaat??? I just checked my anime collection, and there's LOADS of those things!!!'
What I find more surprising is that people are prepared to put up with the generally atrocious quality of most bootlegs coming to UK shores. I've seen a couple of bootlegged discs up close and personal, which the owner had no idea were illegal copies. Both picture and sound were godawful, and the DVDs were so badly put together I was left thinking 'how can anyone think this is acceptable quality for a legit release?' Images played in small boxes on-screen, sound was shot to bits with interference - one DVD even had a start-up menu that was shunted halfway off the screen!
My mind boggles as to why these things find buyers, sometimes.
Something I've found is common to people who are buying / have bought bootlegs in the past is that a good number of 'em didn't KNOW they were doing it at the time!
Admittedly, it's pretty easy to find out what attributes identify a bootleg as opposed to an official release, but to the casual observer, some bootlegs look pretty danged legit.
I talk to people about this particular problem on a pretty regular basis. I've lost count of how many people have said to me 'Whaaaaaat??? I just checked my anime collection, and there's LOADS of those things!!!'
What I find more surprising is that people are prepared to put up with the generally atrocious quality of most bootlegs coming to UK shores. I've seen a couple of bootlegged discs up close and personal, which the owner had no idea were illegal copies. Both picture and sound were godawful, and the DVDs were so badly put together I was left thinking 'how can anyone think this is acceptable quality for a legit release?' Images played in small boxes on-screen, sound was shot to bits with interference - one DVD even had a start-up menu that was shunted halfway off the screen!
My mind boggles as to why these things find buyers, sometimes.
Project-2501
Straw Hat Pirate
Price beats quality.
ConanThe3rd
Railgun
Availability too, it should be said.
HdE
Comic Book Guy
Yeah. I'd rather pay a respectable price for something with a discernible picture and a soundtrack I can actually hear.
It IS a shame that some shows are just damned near impossible to find in legit form, though.
I keep talking with people who are interested in things like Macross Frontier. NO WAY is that ever coming to the UK. Or the States for that matter (Thanks, Big West!) - so it's pretty much fansubs or nothing for people who are interested in it.
Now situations like that are tricky to circumvent.
It IS a shame that some shows are just damned near impossible to find in legit form, though.
I keep talking with people who are interested in things like Macross Frontier. NO WAY is that ever coming to the UK. Or the States for that matter (Thanks, Big West!) - so it's pretty much fansubs or nothing for people who are interested in it.
Now situations like that are tricky to circumvent.
