Forum - View topicNEWS: FUNimation Sues CA Retail Sites over Alleged Bootlegs
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bleuster
 Posts: 455 Location: Orange County |
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I'll admit, I've bought from [This URL is a known bootlegging site] many times and saw several bootlegs featured, but I haven't come across any of Funi's stuff. I saw Robot Carnival (who still owns the rights for the U.S. is up in the air as far as I know), Patlabor and few other older series.
Like another poster here said, despite seeing the "Chinese" and other obvious hints of bootlegging, my buyer instinct took over and filtered all that without thinking. They had some really, really great deals of the legit releases and sometimes they shipped DVDs way, WAY before the street date (Lucky Star boxset arrived nearly a month earlier than most retailers usual got their stock). I saw a local commercial of AnimeNuts and they seemed like cool dudes, but I won't defend them, though. There's no way these guys wouldn't have known that they were selling at least a couple bootlegs. Funi is not the only one that should get a piece of the pie here, I'll say that much. |
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MagusGuardian
 Posts: 590 |
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good move for funimation, I wonder if this will start a domino effect with sites and retailers that sell bootleg DVDs along with the companies selling the bootlegs to the sites and retailers.
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britannicamoore
 Posts: 2618 Location: Out. |
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I enjoyed their sales during christmas. Too bad it took them so long though. I've been both a buyer and a watcher of the site for a few years. I never had any problem with them service wise. And funny, some of the subs I got were good, and other times good enough. My only real positive vote towards their disks were the episode count.
And before some asks me: no quality isn't an big issue for me. As long as I can see the show, get it, and be able to tell who is and there are no huge color waves or it too dark I'm good. I do have a problem when its suppouse to be an offical stream from a company or for sale. Funi waited to long to do this in my opinion. If this company isn't in the country what can they do? And what about the other two thousand sites? the ebay sellers? the comic book stores with the anime sets for the "real" fans? What is going to happen to them? Besides an increase in buyers? And this makes me wonder: what happens to the stores like FYE and gamestop who take used dvds and resell them? Do they get into trouble for stuff like this as well for taking the item and then selling it? |
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MagusGuardian
Posts: 590 |
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Dargonxtc
 Posts: 4463 Location: Nc5xd7+ スターダストの海洋 |
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Can't be happy can you? This is one of the major sites that sold bootlegs, of which many a buyer bought unexpectedly. Now they are no more. That's a good thing. Now is it going to stop people whom actively go out and search for bootlegs, as it sounds you do? No, there are plenty of places one might go for those types of things. So it's a win-win for everyone.  
And re-buying and selling official merchandise is not illegal. So as long as it is properly labeled as being used. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I have NEVER seen a bootleg at Gamestop. Even if they did have them, they are victims themselves, because they unknowingly bought the DVDs as bootlegs and unknowingly sold them as bootlegs. |
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief
 Posts: 1684 Location: Los Angeles, CA |
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Gamestop stopped carrying used DVDs I think. Both Gamestop and FYE will only take used discs when the UPC code matches their database. Bootlegs seldom (ever?) use the real UPC code, so I think it fairly unlikely one would show up in their stores.
A bit of trivia: When was the last publicly announced bust of physical bootleg anime product in the United States? (Hint: It was in Chinatown, NYC) |
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Colonel Wolfe
 Posts: 370 |
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I've purchased some anime from [This URL is a known Bootlegging website].com before and I never had a problem with their DVD's. They always had good prices on their anime ... and they were licensed anime ...
I think FUNI was just jealous that an anime retailer was selling their anime DVD's at huge discounts and wanted to shut them down. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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That's great to hear. Regardless of one's feelings on piracy as a whole, I think we can all agree pretty much unanimously that bootlegs are nothing but a drain on the anime industry with no upsides whatsoever and bootleggers themselves are just willingly taking profits from others in order to profit off the work of others.
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MagusGuardian
Posts: 590 |
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britannicamoore
Posts: 2618 Location: Out. |
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I'd like to say I was happy about this. I'm neither nor or for in the grand scheme of things. Maybe only happy in the idea that some people will learn not to waste their money on stuff they don't mean to buy/want to and will try the better way to see their shows from Japan that aired friday.
I've seen several bootlegs through gamestop, FYE, suncoast, all the stores that except trade ins. Naruto bootlegs, some DBZ, bleach. Others. Complete box sets. I was actually guilty of turning in a few of those products before I knew better, and I got about $15 back out of each purchase for more stuff. If it was something they didn't know they'd scan it. Several of my discs popped up because people had turned them in before/elsewhere. So believe me when I say they're there. Or at least were. |
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Mistystuffer
Posts: 25 |
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I'm not quite sure what you're talking about, but I've been a regular shopper at DeepDiscount for a few years, and I've never seen any anime/Funimation bootlegs on their site. Perhaps they may have misunderstood what was going on, or maybe there's something more complex going on here than Chinese imports. I do recall, however, visiting [This URL is a known bootlegging website]'s site before and seeing many Chinese imports that were boots. Personally, as a hater of bootlegs, or rather the mass-production of them for profit, I'm really pleased to hear this news. Good for Funimation. A lot of the Chinese boots are often factory made and would appear to be legit products, but not to the trainer otaku eye; As Britannicamoore mentioned this above, I've been to DVD buy-and-sell stores like FYE, Gamestop, Vintage Stock, etc. and seen bootlegs among the used ones they've bought from customers... if only they knew they were buying illigitimate DVDs. I remember once a Gamestop once labelled a Love Hina box set as the collection Bandai had put out, merely because they mistook it for that set. They sold it for far more than it was worth. |
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Taris Kamelot
 Posts: 8 |
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The problem wasn't the legit merchandise that they had. It was all of the illegal bootleg copies that they had. The copies they sold that were illegally made using the licensed company's work(the dub track, the anime creators in general), without paying the company, I.E. they were stealing their work. None of the money that they made selling the bootlegs went to the companies that worked on them. Funi is purely within their rights on this one. Oh and as to the mention of F.Y.E. I have actually seen multiple bootlegs in one near where I live. I took one such bootleg and a legitimate copy of the same series to the counter to inform them of the bootleg and to point out how it was obvious, the lousy box(which had the typical picture that looked off, a little too dark), the too few DVD's,the english dub while it had the added chinese sub track, and of course with the box also having the entire description on the back being in kanji plus it was missing the company logo. All they did was scoff and ignore me, pointing out that it had a bar code, so of course it was real. Oh yes, and they were selling this copy for 5 dollars more than the legit, because it was sealed and the real one wasn't. The kicker for me? It was a Geneon title. Can't rem which one, but I can rem that. It seems kinda sad though that companies and stores that specialize in the entertainment industry, or at least those that trade in used media items, aren't educated in how to spot fakes and bootlegs. |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4603 |
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The only used stuff I've seen at FYE has been legit (in fact, I picked up the Samurai Champloo boxset used there in great condition for a rather good price), but it wouldn't surprise me if the odd bootleg or two managed to find their way onto the shelves. I doubt that your standard register worker has all that much knowledge about spotting fakes, particularly in a genre as comparatively obscure as anime is. We're not talking something like this.
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krownklown
Posts: 23 |
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wow i did not know there are this many people on this site that are either expletive retards or full of expletive
-i bought from them not knowing it was a bootleg, yea right, there is no way you can even moderately be an anime fan and go to a site like animediscountdvd and think any of those "imports" are legit -I've known about discount, toxic is another one that they didn't mentino, they have alot more bootlegs then just the ones listed in the suit, and im also kinda suprised it took them this long to get busted, i just figured the company was located outside of the US, so they couldnt be targeted just to help the mentally challenged on this site, a real import will average around 50 to 60 dollars a dvd and contain 2 episodes; if its a boxset you will be spending in the thousands US |
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