|
Title: Clever eBay entrepreneur or rip-off? Post by: Kester Pelagius on November 26, 2007, 12:01:48 AM I know some prefer not to discuss gray market vendors but I stumbled on the following eBay listing: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ACTION-CLASSIC---Thor-and-The-Amazon-Women_W0QQitemZ280176509053QQcmdZViewItem (It's a UK listing by the way.)
Curiosity got the better of me. Here's the really interesting bit from the listing's information: Quote Features
Please note :- This series has been carefully reproduced and professionally converted to DVD from Public domain content. The discs are guaranteed but in the unfortunate event that it is faulty (very rare occurance) a replacement will be posted at once with no questions asked. At least they are up front and honest about the fact they are selling DVDRs. While in principle I applaud the sort of entrepreneurial spirit that's led this person to embark upon their own cottage industry and open a eBay shop it just seems very shady. Too, a quick glance at the titles they are selling is like looking at a cross section of titles that have been released dozens of times by such diverse labels as Alpha Video, Diamond, Front Row, VCI, Brentwood and Mill Creek in a myriad of single title and multi movie releases. Most titles being sold can probably be readily located in the U.S. on DVD, not sure why they wouldn't also be available in the UK. Any Brits here care to comment on this? The point being I am wondering where, exactly, their video sources came from. Are they ripping DVDs? What's going on here. I am especially curious in lieu of this golden nugget: Quote Refunds will not be given as watch and copying does take place Well I suppose a re-burner would be the authority on that. :lookingup: But that's not what got my proverbial dander up. It's this tidbit of information buried in the user "about me" page: Quote All DVDs (unless specified differently) are converted to DVD format by myself from Public Domain downloads. I cannot enhance any of the converted films they are converted as I get them. The quality on some is sometimes not all that good but generally they are very high quality for their age and condition and please remember that a lot of these films are not on general release and are deleted titles. Emphasis mine. In other words if you have a computer, a DVD burner, and have a high speed connection you, too, can leech files from torrent sites and set up shop on eBay. Who knew!? Or you can just cut out the middle man by going to one of these sites: http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com http://www.archive.org Or, if you're in the U.S. and want those on regular DVDs there's always: http://www.oldies.com (look for the 5 for $25 sale link) http://www.digiviewus.com/ (dollar store DVDs) http://www.eastwestdvd.com/ (dollar store DVDs) http://www.millcreekent.com/index.html (mega multi movie packs galore!) Not that thre's anything wrong with DVDr. It's up to you. :cheers: Title: Re: Clever eBay entrepreneur or rip-off? Post by: CheezeFlixz on November 26, 2007, 06:26:14 PM Sad but some people aren't savvy enough to realize that you can watch movies online, or download them all together. Just recently I showed a friend you can stream radio online, he never knew, how he didn't know beats me. Then again some people just want something tangible to hold in their hands, even if it's nothing more than a burnt disc of 1's and 0's of the same data they could have downloaded legally and free.
Title: Re: Clever eBay entrepreneur or rip-off? Post by: Torgo on November 26, 2007, 11:23:24 PM In the case of most public domain titles, I'm perfectly happy just downloading them for free.
|