Beware of Pirates! How to Avoid Bootleg Blu-rays and DVDs, Part 2

Pirate Companies and Distribution

• There are seemingly endless numbers of pirate labels, all hiding in plain sight
• Pointing the finger at the ones hardest to spot: those based in the Western world
• The worst offenders are even getting their stolen goods on TV and into cinemas and film festivals
• While illegal online uploads are rife, even legitimate streaming platforms are infested with their wares

This article is part of a series; if you’ve landed directly on this page I strongly recommend you start from Part 1.

Contents

• US, European and Antipodean pirate labels
• Pirate TV and cinema distribution
• Digital piracy
• Related articles

US, European and Antipodean pirate labels

This list can never be exhaustive: many of the distributor, label and sub-label names listed on sleeves are meaningless. They’re seemingly conjured out of thin air and are swapped around at random. On the rare occasions that pirates are successfully sued they simply declare themselves bankrupt, dissolve the company and start up again under a different name. Though those below are among the worst offenders and crop up regularly, the best way to avoid counterfeits altogether is to follow this checklist. In common with most public domain companies, occasionally pirates muddy the waters by also selling what, to all intents and purposes, appears to be officially licensed product. Make no mistake though: the vast majority of labels on this list are 100% thieves. Even with the very few ‘better’ ones, I guarantee a significant percentage of their inventory is still ripped off. Again, this seems more common with older titles, as it’s easier for them to be palmed off as being PD without anyone paying due diligence.

In Spain, Research Entertainment are foremost among the most prolific bootleggers – to the extent that “Resen” is Spanish slang for a pirate or bootleg.

Note Australia is also plagued by more than its share of piracy and back in their bad old beginnings, the UK’s now-esteemed Eureka label was partial to partnering with antipodean thieves in regularly ripping off other small labels. Even mainstream British newspapers have got in on the act.

Incidentally, it’s generally much safer to buy UK-originated releases with near-impunity: While there are numerous ‘smaller’ volume DVD-R-only sellers everywhere, especially all over eBay, I’m unaware of any large scale pirating or bootlegging operations based in this country. With a few notable exceptions, the situation is quite similar in Germany; that makes two of the five biggest film markets in the EU. Most strange when you consider that the other three, France, Italy and Spain, are absolutely rife with them. Most EU nations are assiduous about enforcing copyright laws and at some point I’d like to investigate the exact reason for the disparity. If anyone can shed any light on this, please get in touch.

[1] When initially researching this article I was informed NoShame had bootlegs on their books. NoShame founder/owner Michele De Angelis has since clarified matters and the entry has been amended accordingly.

Pirate TV and cinema distribution

The really organised companies and individuals affect legitimate businesses more profoundly than you could ever imagine. As well as the de facto discs in many countries, they illegally distribute TV and theatrical releases, and litter unwitting but otherwise legal VOD (video on demand) sites. And all from stolen prints and copies. Feel Films, La Casa Del Cine, Llamentol and Films sans Frontières in particular are old hands at this. The owner of the latter company, Galeshka Moravioff, even set up his own chain of cinemas to help facilitate his industrial scale piracy; more about him later. These too were run using his usual underhanded tactics of threats and intimidation but eventually closed down anyway, as you can read here, here and here. He and his ilk often even have the nerve to use legal means to suppress legitimate distribution. For instance, they’ll get their lawyers to fire off a quick warning to TV stations intending to broadcast certain films, claiming that they, the thieves, actually own the rights and not the official distributors. It usually has the intended effect of causing the TV stations to back away from broadcasting any disputed material completely, until the ‘competing’ distributors settle their differences. Moravioff is even taking it a step further by licensing “his” stolen transfers to uninformed, legitimate home video labels like IVC in Japan, Zima in Mexico and others.

Of course, these frivolous legal claims never actually go anywhere, but kosher companies are again financially wounded, both by being unable to earn money on their own properties and by wasting huge sums on legal fees. Of course, they’re competing on a very uneven playing field: those who have spent a lifetime lying and stealing to get what they want are far more practised in the art of deception than decent, hard-working folk trying to earn an honest living.

Douglas Fairbanks in The Black Pirate (1926)

Digital piracy

Though the focus here is on piracy of physical media, as those formats continue to cede popularity to online platforms, digital pirates are increasingly becoming the norm. Amazon Video and other ostensibly legit streaming and download sites are also infested with illegal uploads from many of the companies listed above. The latest individual to come to light (March 2017) is Guido Baechler, founder and director of the obscure Lucerne International/Independent Film Festival (he can’t seem to make his mind up). For years, in a manner closely mirroring Maravioff’s, this unscrupulous individual has been openly selling digital copies of films that have screened at his festival. In a perverse move, he’s misappropriated copyright laws to steal from the very rights holders they were designed to protect. To really add insult to injury, he’s even been crediting himself as a producer on many of said films. Read this exposé:

• The Digital Black Market: How a Festival Used Copyright Laws to Sell the Films It Screened

In the interest of fairness, you can read his lengthy rebuttal (archived copy) of the IndieWire article’s claims, but his arguments are as leaky as a sieve. For some reason, Baechler subsequently removed said rebuttal; perhaps in time even he came to realise his actions were utterly indefensible. The world is full of liars and thieves and ’twas ever thus, but the likes of Maravioff and Baechler have elevated their odious activities to a brazen art form.

February 2018 update: Baechler’s scam festival now seems to have died a complete death – bloody good riddance.

Part 2: Pirate Companies and Distribution

Related articles

• Beware of Pirates! How to Avoid Bootleg Blu-rays and DVDs: Overview, the Public Domain and Spotting Fakes
  • Part 2: Pirate Companies and Distribution
  • Part 3: Pirates and Their Victims Speak
  • Part 4: Parodies and Bootlegging News
• Bootlegs Galore: The Great Alfred Hitchcock Rip-off
• Alfred Hitchcock: Dial © for Copyright: British Law
  • Part 2: American Law
  • Part 3: British Films
  • Part 4: American Films
• Charlie Chaplin Collectors’ Guide, Part 2: The Bad, the Ugly and the Good

Brent Reid

I started Brenton Film because I love film – quelle surprise! The silent era, 1930s and 1940s especially get my literary juices flowing, so you’ll see a lot about those. For more, see the About page.