The only official version of the Transformers Cartoon series is done by Rhino. The complete set with all the seasons was NEVER released. There's only:

Season 1
Season 2: Part 1
Season 2: Part 2
Season 3: Part 1
Season 3: Part 2/Season 4

The other complete sets are always bootlegs (with 99.9% of them being from China). Doesn't matter whether they're tins or fancy boxes that come with belt buckles, or 20th Anniversary special DVD covers. They're pirated copies. Period. Some of the sellers here on eBay probably think they're selling legit copies because the sets look "official." If anything, bootleg items have shot up in quality in the last several years, especially those done by infamous "3rd shift" factories, so it's difficult to tell the difference, especially to an untrained eye.

"Third shifts" happen when Chinese companies that are legitimately contracted by companies like North Face, Nike, etc. to manufacture their products make more than what the customer ordered and secretly sell the surplus that was illegally produced (during the 3rd/graveyard shift). The legitimate items are made during the first two shifts (day shift/swing shift).

Because all the patterns/designs are already in the possession of the Chinese factories to make the legit stuff, the illegal stuff looks/feels authentic; only, it doesn't head back to North Face or Nike for official distribution. Instead, it's sold in tourist hotspots across China, which then makes its way to Europe or the US. The factories still can make a ton by selling the products for less than in Western markets but for way more than they would've gotten had they just sold poorly-made counterfeits. Great way to supplement their income. There've been articles on this kind of activity in Fortune and BusinessWeek.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. DVD piracy isn't really a 3rd-shift industry because it's much easier to copy DVDs than textiles. You just need a PC, some blank DVDs, and a DVD-label printer. So how can you tell whether something's pirated?

1. Common sense...US studios don't release DVDs only in China, especially not of US-based cartoons and not release them elsewhere. If it were a Chinese-based movie, then maybe. But definitely not a Western movie/show. Most DVDs of Western movies/shows sold in China are pirated...very few are sold legitimately because they're expensive, being imported from the US. Some are sold at big retailers like Carrefour, but bootleg DVD stores outnumber the big guys 1000:1. Granted, it may have changed post-Olympics.

2. "Region-free" DVDs are almost never released by the major distribution companies...however, bootleg DVDs, especially from Asia, are almost always region-free. They may say "Region 1," but if you have access to a Region 2 player (we lived in Europe for a while), it'll still work. That's just to make things sound legit; plus, they're assuming that you wouldn't have any way of proving that it works in regions other than 1.

If you were to burn your own DVD...of say pictures and videos from your vacation in Paris, that would also be region free. So copies, by default are region-free. Only official DVD releases are region-coded.

And Region-coding are the studios' way of controlling price and release details between different parts of the world because different people in various countries aren't willing to pay the same amount for a DVD. So it'll have to be cheaper in some areas such as Asia. But if there isn't some way of managing this, people will just buy a ton in Asia and resell them in the US...hey, just like pirated DVDs!

3. Chinese subtitles...those pop up with every pirated Chinese DVD that I've ever bought when I was living in China. I've also bought a lot of other foreign DVDs legitimately, but the subtitles don't pop up by default. You have to enable them.

4. Packaging...most of the DVDs aren't in solid cases. The outside boxes look pretty, but the DVDs are in generic white sleeves. Definitely not a sign of a legitimate box set.

Other notes: And as for Amazon selling it, they don't. Some of their marketplace storefronts do. But unless the big studios request them to clamp down, Amazon is happy to let their marketplaces do whatever. After all, why preemptively limit your profits when it's not necessary?

And how do I know all this...I've lived in Beijing for a number of years and owned a large number of pirated DVDs. I can spot one from a mile away (it's actually not too hard) And the default Chinese subtitles are pretty automatic. I even know how the whole process works because I've had friends in the business.

But since moving back to the US, I only buy legitimate stuff...the price differential between the genuine products (on eBay or even Amazon) and pirated DVDs have narrowed considerably over the years. And the quality of the real stuff is better...no need to sort through Chinese or Thai subtitles or wondering whether the picture quality is junk.

But if price is an issue, and you need to have the complete Transformers set more for viewing pleasure than as a collector's item, then the pirated DVD sets are the way to go.