Bandai Cracks Down Intellectual Property Infringement

[Wheee_It's_Me!]

I just recently discovered that one of my favorite places to pick up anime was dishing out bootlegs. It's kinda like being betrayed, though looking back it was fairly obvious and I should have known better. Even so I wish Bandi the best of luck.

Everybody has bootlegs. I ordered the GTO set off of Amazon.com marketplace and got the bootleg version. On top of that, not all of the bootlegs come out of HK, so sometimes it can be hard to tell (for example there are a lot of box sets for sailor moon that seem to have Canada as the origin point).

What gets me, is the general low quality of the bootlegs. Compared to the fansubs, even official releases can frequently fall short.

Like I said, anybody can get DVD distribution rights these days, there's not exactly a lot of quality assurance. And since the amount you pay is generally based on what you earn (ie no real up front costs), it makes it even easier. Be careful though about who you accuse of "bootlegging" I would imagine that many of these outfits are actually legit...just not well managed. To give a good comparison example Nelvana currently owns most of the media distribution rights to the Care Bears franchise and as such they have "official" released DVDs, HOWEVER, they also SELL partial DVD distribution rights to many other sorta, "low ball" outfits. They may produce crap, but they are legit.

[Coffee 54]

I just recently discovered that one of my favorite places to pick up anime was dishing out bootlegs. It's kinda like being betrayed, though looking back it was fairly obvious and I should have known better. Even so I wish Bandi the best of luck.

Everybody has bootlegs. I ordered the GTO set off of Amazon.com marketplace and got the bootleg version. On top of that, not all of the bootlegs come out of HK, so sometimes it can be hard to tell (for example there are a lot of box sets for sailor moon that seem to have Canada as the origin point).

What gets me, is the general low quality of the bootlegs. Compared to the fansubs, even official releases can frequently fall short.

Like I said, anybody can get DVD distribution rights these days, there's not exactly a lot of quality assurance. And since the amount you pay is generally based on what you earn (ie no real up front costs), it makes it even easier. Be careful though about who you accuse of "bootlegging" I would imagine that many of these outfits are actually legit...just not well managed. To give a good comparison example Nelvana currently owns most of the media distribution rights to the Care Bears franchise and as such they have "official" released DVDs, HOWEVER, they also SELL partial DVD distribution rights to many other sorta, "low ball" outfits. They may produce crap, but they are legit.

Oh, this one's a bootleg alright, Chinese subtitles and unless every episode on this first disc has the exact same title somebody did a little cut and paste. Though now, with all you guys have said, I'm not sure weather the source knew or not.

[madbunny]

Like I said, anybody can get DVD distribution rights these days, there's not exactly a lot of quality assurance. And since the amount you pay is generally based on what you earn (ie no real up front costs), it makes it even easier. Be careful though about who you accuse of "bootlegging" I would imagine that many of these outfits are actually legit...just not well managed. To give a good comparison example Nelvana currently owns most of the media distribution rights to the Care Bears franchise and as such they have "official" released DVDs, HOWEVER, they also SELL partial DVD distribution rights to many other sorta, "low ball" outfits. They may produce crap, but they are legit.

I know what you are saying, and I'm not arguing that point. What I'm saying is that even mainstream media outlets, like Amazon.com sometimes have bootleg, or illegal products work through the system. My case in point was the GTO 'perfect' collection, which shipped containing all the disks in a big multifold case, even though it wasn't what was pictured on the page. The Sailor moon coming out of Canada, I could be potentially wrong about, but the prices are a bit too low for what would normally be an official release. A little ebay research and you'll see what I mean (look at the point of origin on most of them).

Ironically, it's niche groups like ours in the AMV community that have a greater understanding of how to recognize this duplicity. The average consumer will just get the case and say.. 'oh, they changed the packaging' and as long as they don't get one of the famously horrid HK translations probably won't notice or care.