Pirated DVDs for sale at GenCon

[Darth K'Trava]

Like others have said, Pirated DVDs/VHSs are just a thing of Cons, I've NEVER been to one that doesn't have at least one vendor. They usually get a good amount of sales from what I can tell, too.

We've banned those kinds of vendors from our convention Stellarcon because we didn't want to deal with any potential legal issues, especially when the convention is being funded by a state-funded university.

 

[Desdichado]

At GenCon this year I learned that White Wolf recently settled a blatantly trivial and money-grubbing lawsuit with Sony over some superficial similarities that the movie "Underworld" shared with the World of Darkness.

Here, I fixed your typo there in the quote.

I'm interested in hearing something that's not an obviously speculative rumor about the resolution of that case, though. If there was a resolution.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Like others have said, Pirated DVDs/VHSs are just a thing of Cons, I've NEVER been to one that doesn't have at least one vendor. They usually get a good amount of sales from what I can tell, too.

We've actually banned them from our convention due to potential legal issues and not wanting to tick of the university providing our funding.....

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Who cares about jaywalking in milwaukee. That link was FUNNY!!! And it's SO TRUE!

 

[Dogbrain]

By my count, there were 3 different merchants selling pirated DVDs at GenCon. Why does GenCon permit this illegal activity to take place year after year?

Nobody stopped you from turning them in.

 

[Alzrius]

Hmm, this explains why they wouldn't take credit cards.

Honestly, I didn't realize they were bootlegged at the time, simply because I couldn't imagine anyone having the hutzpah to openly sell illegal materials in front of everyone. Shows how naive I am.

Honestly though, I can't bring myself to be upset. Almost all of the bootlegged stuff sold was of stuff that you can't get domestically, so almost no business was lost. Had they been giving them away for free, there would have been no actual crime committed, since the current U.S. law is that you can freely distribute media that isn't domestically available for purchase - hence why the fansubbing industry for anime will always remain alive and well.

As it stands, I'm ecstatic to have a subtitled copy of Battle Royale finally. If only I had had the funds by the end of the con to buy the sequel...