Bootlegger or Valued Seller?

There are many, many movies that have been made over the past 80 or so years and many of them are available on dvd or vhs.  However, literally thousands of them are not.  some are in the public domain which means anyone can have access to their production and most are not.

Bootleggers who take a dvd or video copy of a movie and just keep making copies of movies that are not in the public domain are just that - Bootleggers, and are illegally copying and selling these products.  They are breaking the law.

however there is another group or class of sellers that are not breaking the law and are in fact offering a great service to the general public.  these sellers are often branded as bootleggers when they are not.  There are literally thousands of movies that have never been offered for sale to the general public either on video, laser, or dvd by the studios.  Many of these are in the public domain and as such are available for sellers and collectors to offer to the general public.  There are sites on the internet which can help clarify what is public domain and what is not and there are collectors both on and off ebay who offer many unheard of or unavailable movie gems and make them available to the public.

Back in the 30's and 40's (even today) when a movie company made a movie it was shot and then prints (copies) of that movie were made for distribution around the country to the movie houses where it played.  After the movie had its run it went into the vault, onto the shelf, into the storage room or some such location never to be heard from again.  Over the years the copyrights ran out if they were not renewed and it then wound up in the public domain.  Thousands of these movies have never been reproduced for commercial viewing or released by the studios and movie houses.

however collectors who treasure and enjoy these old classics would obtain the 35mm reels from the vaults and storerooms.   Just like the studios and movie houses they can legally bring to us many, many movies that were heretofore absolutely unavailable and make them available to us by making copies from the prints and offering them for sale.  Just because a seller is offering a film that is out of print, or was never offered for sale by a studio does not make them a bootlegger. 

There are two important questions. First, is it in the public domain? If it is what is it being copied from?

The quality of the print (and therefore the copy you would buy) is determined by a few factors:  The quality of the film when the movie was shot, the quality of the transfer from the original movie to the prints for the movie houses, how they were stored and cared for, and the weathering and time effects of the film itself.  So some collectors have prints that are first rate quality and some have prints that are of lesser quality. 

Bootleggers will buy a commercially released dvd or vido and make copies off of this copyrighted material, or they will tape a copyrighted show or movie off of the TV and sell it.  Both of these actions are illegal.

Collectors are usually quite proud of their collections and are very forthcoming on questions you may have about their offerings.  Some questions to ask are: What is the quality of the picture? What is the quality of the soundtrack? (these are usually in terms of a 1-10 scale)  What is it copied from? Is it in the public domain? How is it packaged?

What is more confusing for us the buying public is they often do not have artwork or commercial packaging because none was ever created since it was never commercially marketed or released.  Sometime they will offer their own artwork, usually a photo from the movie or something like that. These sellers however will not be claiming it is a rental or from someone's collection.  They usually offer their works at a reasonable price.

Bootleggers on the other hand rarely respond to these questions or they offer an answer that does not answer the question.  As a general rule the more recent the film the larger the chances are that it is a bootleg copy for there are fewer recent films that are in the public domain.

It is us, the buying community that needs to be aware of these differences.  Check their feedback (even the good feedback, what are people saying?), look at their other auctions, read their auctions to see what they are not telling you and then ask questions.  

So yes, there are nefarious sellers known as bootleggers and there are those sellers(collectors) bringing a great service to those of us who are interested in what they have to offer.  There are many more bootleggers than genuine collectors. Caveat Emptor.