I’ve seen a few throughout my life at friend’s houses as a kid during the age of Limewire. Typically they were pretty good quality even though you’d see the odd person get up from their seat or hardcoded subtitles. Lately I’ve been curious about the history behind them and how they came to be.
Have there been well known release groups similar to the game cracking scene?
Have they always been mostly from one region?
Are they released strategically for one reason or another?
Have there been hidden methods to bust groups after a release such as steganography?
I’d be down to hear any facts about it you find interesting, stories, and if you have any articles or videos about the subject.
In the last 10 years, I stopped in this gas station off a busy road in my home town. They have bootleg dvds just on the counter.
I can’t believe that place didn’t get shutdown. There is a police station just a few blocks away.
Cops don’t care about those. That’s for lawyers to deal with.
That’s fair.
Same as it was in my neighborhood. Smoke shops would have them on display under a glass counter. I assumed it was somehow legal for a long time.
Just not something local cops care enough about. Hell, local cops are probably buying those copies too.
It’s the FBI that does the enforcement of those laws, and more so only comes down when the MPAA lawyers are aware of it. And neither FBI or MPAA are aware until it’s a bigger operation, like a series of 76 gas stations across the west coast are all selling bootlegs and the regional manager is in on it or something. But the local gas station or neighborhood barber shop? Too small to care about and would bring more negative publicity since the neighborhood would be highly upset attacking a small business owner like that.
Good point! I’d be to scared to buy one as it might be an undercover op 😂😂
Plus it’s too easy to get online for free anyway.