How to Tell if Your Dvd is Fake/Bootleg or Is This Dvd Real?

[Pluto Region1]

I'm sorry u got cheated, I was cheated as well with Disney DVDs and will never buy them again from Ebay. If there is one negative feedback about bootlegging chances are there all bootlegs and the other buyers just couldn't tell the difference. I would demand a refund and/or file a dispute with Ebay if you are sure its a bootleg...which it seems to be.

You are right about that - look at the feedback; there was ONE feedback in his 99% positive feedback history from someone who got a bootleg, but the seller had refunded immediately so I just dismissed it. I mean, anyone can mistakenly buy a bootleg and then resell it not knowing, right? So I gave them the benefit of the doubt. The seller did give me a complete refund and was very nice about it. I left positive feedback as the seller was true to his word and refunded immediately, but I did mention I had received a bootleg. That feedback at least serves to warn people.

And yes, I agree that since the bootlegs are so sophisticated and unless you are somewhat of a sophisticated buyer and know that there are bootlegs floating around, you may not even realize you bought one, thus leaving the seller positive feedback. And as I think Julian pointed out, people who discover they've purchased a bootleg will just leave decent feedback and may not even reveal they got a bootleg in their feedback because at that point they are so worried about getting a refund from the seller.

When I first ordered the second-hand SW from Amazon's secondary market (and hadn't received it yet), I was posting here how I didn't think I would care if it was a bootleg. But as it turns out, it did ultimately matter to me. Of course bootlegs do serve a purpose of at least allowing people to see/view severely OOP movies. I guess there is just a difference between knowing you are buying a bootleg and paying a cheap bootleg price vs. being suckered into thinking you are getting the "genuine thing" and paying a collector's price. (I have since purchased a real copy of SW GameStop so all's well that ends well.)

[Chrissy31886]

^ I wondered if amazon sold bootlegs as well. I assumed they did but I don't know as much about Amazon as I do about Ebay. The one DVD I regret missing is Beauty and the Beast, I've been searching all over the net....but im afraid if ending up with a bootleg.

[JamesDFarrow]

^ I wondered if amazon sold bootlegs as well. I assumed they did but I don't know as much about Amazon as I do about Ebay. The one DVD I regret missing is Beauty and the Beast, I've been searching all over the net....but im afraid if ending up with a bootleg.

I would trust Amazon a lot more than eBay. Check out the third party sellers on Amazon and pick one with at least a 99% or 100% positive feedback. BATB can be had between $35.00 and $40.00.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/ ... 23?ie=UTF8

James

[Jeremy]

What is bootleg anyway? Leg with boot..? I searched from dictionary but it wasn't mentioned there.

[Finchx0rz]

A bootleg is an illegal copy or something distributed without the copyright holder's consent.

[my chicken is infected]

I honestly don't have a MAJOR problem with bootlegs. I've made a few for myself with my uncle's DVD-R drive, and plan to make some for my own personal use when I get my own DVD-R drive. However, I DO have a problem with people selling bootlegs, especially for the same price as a regular edition. It's just not right. Make them for your own personal use and I don't give a rat's ass. I've bootlegged too many movies and CDs to have a problem with it.

[ohmahaaha]

Great thread, folks, and thank you ... but I have a question for anyone who has been burnt (no pun intended) with a bootleg copy of a Disney DVD.

This happened to me just recently ... I received the DVD, only to find that the picture on the disc itself appeared to be "washed out" and much less vivid than official discs have been; on the reverse side of the disc, no serial numbers or bar code, the only thing that was there had been scratched out!!

Now, I complained to the seller, who refunded my money ... however, I'm wondering if anyone out there who has had a similar experience has followed up on it by reporting the incident to eBay. How does that work? It looks like eBay just asks you to enter the Item number of the item you think is bootleg, but what happens then? Is there risk of repercussion of any kind? And are there any numbers to suggest that eBay is having any kind of success with quashing this sort of thing?

[Pluto Region1]

I would trust Amazon a lot more than eBay. Check out the third party sellers on Amazon and pick one with at least a 99% or 100% positive feedback. BATB can be had between $35.00 and $40.00.

Amazon's secondary market sellers is where I ended up paying $35 for a fake Snow White DVD from a seller with over 98% positive feedback. There is no guaranty Amazon vs. Ebay. The problem is with secondary market sellers in general. They might be crooks and then they themselves might have bought a good quality bootleg and don't realize it. Ebay seems to be more notorious for problems and I think because thieves know more about Ebay than about other venues, but that didn't stop me from getting burned over at Amazon. Bootlegs could also be circulated through Gamestop by people who buy on secondary market, and resell them to Gamestop.

The best prevention from bootlegs is to become an expert on what to look for. (Read all the bootleg threads here at UD!) Frankly, I think Gamestop is going to be safer because you can hold it in your hands and be the judge beforehand and worse comes to worse, buy it from them and within 7 days you can return it if your investigation determines it is a bootleg. That's my 2 cents.

As for Ebay, the good thing is that at least Ebay has a new policy of guaranteeing some of the sellers products so even if it turns out to be a bootleg, you can eventually get reimbursed through that program; but it is only with certain sellers, so be sure to check the seller's ad carefully for the Ebay guaranty. Ebay doesn't want to be in the business of reimbursing hundreds of people who get burned by these bootleggers, so they probably suspend the seller's accounts. However, bootleggers could just create a new account and start selling again. But with a new account, they'd have zero feedback and you should not buy from anyone with zero feedback who claims to have some rare OOP Disney DVD.

[Pluto Region1]

Now, I complained to the seller, who refunded my money ... however, I'm wondering if anyone out there who has had a similar experience has followed up on it by reporting the incident to eBay. How does that work? It looks like eBay just asks you to enter the Item number of the item you think is bootleg, but what happens then? Is there risk of repercussion of any kind? And are there any numbers to suggest that eBay is having any kind of success with quashing this sort of thing?

You may want to also take a look at this thread which has been ongoing for the last month or two as well:

http://www.ultimatedisney.com/forum/vie ... 186#263186

I don't know if anyone here has any info on how Ebay is dealing with the bootleggers. As I posted there, Ebay probably investigates and suspends the accounts of the bootleggers since Ebay can't be in the business of reimbursing hundreds of customers who are getting burned by the bootleggers.

I would definitely report all incidents to Ebay because when you don't, then the next person may get burned by the same seller, but not even realize they got a bootleg and leave positive feedback, thus the person never gets caught and more bootlegs are put into circulation, which is bad for everyone involved (except the people taking your money).

[totallyminnie86]

After reading this thread, I decided to investigate a little with a copy of BatB PE that I got to replace my original, which is missing disc 1. When I first got the movie, I noticed that there seems to be some hard to explain interference in the video quality. Its like flickering almost, but its hard to see, almost like that weird movement in old computer monitors. It usually only appears around the lighter colors, especially white. I'm not sure if this is a problem with my disc though, it could just be the dvd player.

But I was getting a bit paranoid so I decided to compare my original dvd to the new one. After reading all the guidelines on here, I think its probably ok ; there aren't any of the major warning signs. But there are a few slight imperfections that might tip it off as being bad.

1) the back cover of the main insert/guide is aligned differently, nothing major, just text is positioned slightly at a different height. also, lumiere's arms are towards the edge of the paper, in my authentic copy it shows most of them, in the new one it cuts off more of his arms than in my original.

2) The disc art on disc 2 (which I still have from my original) is almost identical, but slightly more plain yellow and red toned in appearance than the dark red and golden yellow on the original.

3) The disc case opens backwards, i.e. instead of the 1st disc being visible and having to flip to see disc 2, you open the case and must flip the panel to see both discs.

So, does this sound legit? or like it may be a VERY well done R1 boot? I mean it had all the inserts, and they were perfect, the color and paper were as expected. It even had the contest entry card and customer service card. But I suppose they could've re-inserted them from an original release. Maybe it is an authentic R1, but from Canada or something where things may be slightly different?

Sorry for the lengthy post....Thanks to anyone who may know though!

[ohmahaaha]

When we consider non-authentic DVDs, there are three kind of DVDs

1) Bootleg DVD
2) Imported DVDs
3) Fake Region 1 DVDs.

Question: are the Imported DVDs and "Fake Region 1 DVDs" also considered illegal, and therefore subject to the same rules and regulations on eBay as the Bootleg DVDs? Sorry if that's a redundant question, but I didn't get that from this post.

[Pluto Region1]

When we consider non-authentic DVDs, there are three kind of DVDs

1) Bootleg DVD
2) Imported DVDs
3) Fake Region 1 DVDs.

Question: are the Imported DVDs and "Fake Region 1 DVDs" also considered illegal, and therefore subject to the same rules and regulations on eBay as the Bootleg DVDs? Sorry if that's a redundant question, but I didn't get that from this post.

Anything that is not released by Disney is illegal. I don't know if Disney released any of the DVDs overseas, (you may have to search some more bootleg threads here for that info), but if they released some DVDs overseas then those would be legal copies, but the problem is that many of the bootlegs come from overseas, especially Asia, so that is why people are saying to stay away from those if you want to protect yourself from getting a bootleg.

I do not know why he/she made a distinction between a bootleg and a "fake Region 1" - to me, that sounds like one and the same.

[adam_omega]

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but wanted to share some pictures of a Bootleg Snow White DVD to show how convencing fakes have become. I bought this DVD off of Half.com as a "like new" DVD, and I'm trying to get my money back now. But I had to share these images as another Bootleg warning.






Some things to notice:
1.) The case is not a double alphapak case.
2.) The DVD cover is thicker than a normal Disney cover and has visible
moires in the art. It does have rounded corners, though.
3.) The front cover does not have silver foil at the top and bottom, but it is more holographic and the letters are not clearly visible upon closer inspection.
4.) The back cover's barcode is not solid like other bar codes. It has bits of dots that are visible.
5.) The DVDs themselves have moires on their labels and are smooth.
6.) Crazier still... the bottom of the DVDs do not have bar codes around the inner ring like official DVDs, but they do have some text says the title. There is no scratched out tool effect.

Obviously, the bootleg image earlier in this thread is a lot like this one, but the cases and bottom of the DVDs are different. Still, pretty shocking to see how far Bootlegs are trying to push things to look "authentic."


- Adam

[lapniappe]

wow. some people have a lot of time on their hands. the only differences i can see is that the original is a lot less shiny then the bootleg ones.

[DisneyFreak5282]

Wow, thanks for the heads up. Like some other people, I can't see much difference. I HATE BOOTLEGGERS! They're just lame, idiotic creeps who have way too much time on their hands! I'm sorry to hear that you guys got ripped off. If you can't get refunds, go to the police or FBI or something, I mean you have these people (who you've brought the DVD from) information, just give it to the police.

[Simba3]

Thanks for the post. I actually purchased "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" online myself, but fortunately it was not a bootlegged copy. You can barely tell the differences between the two copies though. Thanks for the post, I will be sure to look closely before I buy any more Disney DVDs off the internet.

[Beastboyravenz]

You guys also need to watch out for bootleg beauty and the beast's. I should know cause I bought one on ebay. It looked good except once I opened the package I knew it was a bootleg. The platinum edition bar looks grainy and sort of dim. An the beast looks as if he had highlights on his mane. It just looks really bright. Luckily I boguht another for $9.99 u would think I learned, but it was original. The bootlge dvd's look faded too. So be carefull you guys. So I payed less for the original and a hell of alot more for the fake. But the picture quality of the fake one was just as good as the real one.

[adam_omega]

What's really annoying about bootlegs is that it's not the cheap DVDs that you have to be mindful of...it's the ones that are priced around the premium you'd expect to pay to have that OOP DVD. You shell out 25 to 30 dollars for the DVD and get a bootleg...and you really get angry because you feel cheated and betrayed. I mean, that money could've just been put towards a real copy... >_>

But yes, Beauty and the Beast and Snow White are two of the worst DVDs for getting bootlegs of. Have to be very careful with those as the fakes are getting harder to spot.


Heck, I even got a REAL Beauty and the Beast DVD, but the seller didn't sell me the one pictured in the auction and didn't follow their auction's shipping promise. So instead of getting a DVD with the stickers on the front of the box, I got one that was missing the stickers and had part of the glossy slip-cover lamination missing. On top of that, they were supposed to ship it in bubble wrap and a box, and they tossed it in 2 pieces of tissue paper and in a priority mail bag and the slip-cover got all beat up. Some sellers...sheesh....

[Simba3]

I have had to buy 4 DVDs off the internet now because they were out of print and I really wanted them for my Disney collection. I have no problem paying more money if I know that the item is an Authentic, sealed R1 DVD. I would rather pay more money and be completely satisfied with the DVD than try to get it for cheap and get a bootlegged copy or a used one with scratches or other damages. For anyone who is searching for 1 or 2 DVDs for your collection, I would recommend just paying the extra money to get an authentic DVD.

[adam_omega]

Wow, some of those prices... o_o

But I do like knowing that there's a good place to get most of the OOP sequel movies. Most of those prices still seem pretty close to standard retail.