Forum - View topicAnswerman - What's With The Bootlegs On Amazon?
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BigOnAnime
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 1233 Location: Minnesota, USA |
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Maize Hughes
Posts: 81 |
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That's really the only kind of bootleg I'd be interested in. There are a lot of niche series that I like that don't really have figurines, so if on of a favorite character appears, boy am I going to be tempted. (And by niche, I mean non-ecchi, non-shonen, and not a big seller. Like Oda Nobuna, for instance.) |
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Yeah, sometimes I do get the urge to get some of them too. The bootleg-only things I find most often are plushes of Pokémon Nintendo never released officially as plushes or never released in larger sizes.
There's a strange intersection between never-released-officially bootlegs and high-quality bootlegs too, something that I noticed last year at Anime Expo: There were a lot of vendors selling bootleg plushes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic characters. You can tell they're bootleg because the tags simply have a zoomed in group picture with the gamma turned up too high and the brightness turned down too low, with no logo, no copyright, and no manufacturer. But they had plushes of characters neither Hasbro, Ty, nor Aurora had released as plushes (and looking at what was available, the bootleggers were well in tune with the fans), and the ones that they had released, they were of better quality than the Hasbro and Ty ones (there's no beating Aurora though). It's pretty sad, if you ask me, when bootleggers make a better product than an official manufacturer.
Yeah, and the main TV we have in our house, and the only one that goes all the way up to 1080p, we got in 2010 because the CRT it replaced had broken. Similarly, I don't think we'll be upgrading until this current one breaks either. And in this house, there is also a TV that only goes up to 720p as well as at least four still working CRTs. My Xbox 360 is hooked up to a fully-operational Trinitron from 1978, when TVs still had wood finishes and dials.
I don't think there's much malice there as much as ignorance. When YouTube introduced the 16:9 aspect ratio player, you had people stretching their 4:3 videos with the YouTube stretch tags, and so many viewers did not notice that the video had been stretched. During this time, a few people had suggested to me to stretch out all of my 4:3 videos, one of them convinced that "magic will happen." He thought that the stretch tag, well, magically fills in the pillarboxes at the side of the video player. Similarly, videos in 240p scaled up to 720p are, I'd bet, done by people who don't notice any difference in resolution, or psychosomatically see a difference that isn't there. Either way, they probably think that increasing the resolution, again, magically increases the picture quality of the video, as if it were shot in 720p to begin with. The idea that the original material has to be at least that resolution never occurs to them, or it confuses them.
Ah, that! I don't know why I didn't look there. We got that one too. Nobody liked watching any of the movies on the set. The quality was terrible. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13583 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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An interesting thought about merchandise: When an IP becomes public domain (with that same IP becoming public domain from both copyright and trademarks), then you might not have to necessarily worry about bootleg/pirated merchandise.
However, as long an IP continues to be trademarked and copyrighted (specifically, I look at Sherlock Holmes having almost 130 years in IP through copyright and trademark), then this is an issue. The above point is a reason why I am a firm advocate of shortening copyright and trade-mark lifespans. |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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The main reason I got a 1080 TV was because my monitor's 1680x1050 and I figured that, since I was getting a TV, I should getting something that could do better than that. Probably the most useful feature left is 600Hz.
For those who don't get why a ridiculous refresh rate is useful, it's because all the common framerates scale to it evenly, so there's no telecining required. Some simple math: 24 = 2*2*2*3 25 = 5*5 50 = 2*5*5 60 = 2*2*3*5 600 = 2*2*2*3*5*5 The real question, of course, is when people start filming in 4K 600 FPS. It'd be almost like you're there peeking in through a window watching people have sex. |
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6883 Location: Kazune City |
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mangamuscle
Posts: 2658 Location: Mexico |
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Nevertheless this on the rare side of the spectrum, you won't see thousand (or even a hundread) of seeders for those, so at present time it is nothing to for sony, warner or universal to loss sleep over. BTW, those blu-rays are raws, not unencoded since they use h264 (or mpg2 when they want to bloat the file size) at generous bit rates. Truly unencoded video (or even audio) it is a bloat only film/music studios can cope with.
I think those numbers are way exaggerated. 4k is merely 4.26 bigger than 1080p and we have yet to take into consideration the size decrease h265 (not yet widely used) will grant over h264. The real bottleneck is how bandwidth caps many users have to deal with in the USA and Canada *waves unthrottled/uncapped 3rd world internet connection* 
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Polycell
Posts: 4623 |
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@ Zalis116:
I remember seeing that test clip and a bit of searching later I found it. Turns out it's from way back in 2011.
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gsilver
Posts: 626 |
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One thing that Amazon changed recently is that it no longer allows individuals to list items on the marketplace.
I used to be an Amazon seller to try to thin out my substantial (legit) anime collection. Once Amazon changed its policies, I needed to fork over $40/month to continue to sell (along with a token gesture of telling them how I avoided bootlegs). That $40 fee made it impossible for me to continue selling there, since I was just trying to clear out closet space. Someone with actual inventory (like bootleg resellers...) aren't quite so deterred, and the process to get around Amazon's screening is simple. |
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Apashi
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The worst bootlegs on Amazon are the stolen fanarts. This infuriates me as an artist. I actually follow a few artists on pixiv that have their work unquestionably being sold without permission. Unfortunately none of them speak English so they never responded when I contacted them about the issue. I've seen the same problem on Ebay. People don't even realize it's bootleg because the fanart is so good. But somewhere, a good artist is being taken advantage of.
PS: Side-story, I once saw a totally unsuspecting Digimon fan selling back a stolen fanart poster he had purchased a few years before. |
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doc-watson42
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 1709 |
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Actually, Fred Patten has recently told that story—see: • Patten, Fred (May 10, 2015). "Streamline Pictures – Part 4". Cartoon Research. Funny Animals and More (column). • Patten, Fred (May 17, 2015). "Streamline Pictures – Part 5". Cartoon Research. Funny Animals and More (column).
I intend to go through that thread ("Spotting Bootlegs") and add the worthwhile links, but here is my own collection: "Anti-bootleg resources for anime, manga, and related goods". Any comments or corrections would be appreciated. |
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Estelle the White Mage
 Posts: 51 |
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I've bought quite a bit of "bootleg" wall scrolls off of Amazon over the course of several years.
Mostly because it's cheaper. A much wider selection of scroll types, sizes, and characters for a much lower price than those "1/X limited edition" scrolls that were made when the show aired. I like my scrolls to have a particular design, which includes most if not all the main characters shown on it, along with the anime logo. The bootleg Amazon goods seem to have a lot of just that, and within my budget. Know that there is always a reason for why people resort to bootleg copies. It would be naïve to think that every bootleg copy be purged, then everyone would be happy to purchase the limited content at a much higher price. Wondering why all the content would require you to take out a small loan.... |
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Max465
 Posts: 60 |
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In CR's defense they simulcast the majority of their shows. They get the Broadcast version because that's all that exists when they aquire the rights. And on that note, they only aquire the rights to stream a show, so they don't really have the means to aquire the home video versions down the road. Discussions would probably go something like CR: "Can we stream the home video version?" Owner: "Will you Pay us more money" CR: "No." Owner: "Then No" Funimation on the other hand. It would be nice if they would update their simulcasted shows (We Without Wings was actually one of their first if I recall) with the home video version for subscribers once they aquire it. |
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