DVD-pimping

[Jon]

This isn't a personal dig to any of the fine people using the DVD File Forum, but what does everyone think of those people who buy multiple copies of discontinued or limited edition DVDs, no, not the see the films themselves, or even the extras, but to just sell them on two months later on Ebay or somewhere else.

As a cinema and DVD fanatic, I find this deeply distressing, as poor old John Doe logs onto DVD Express or walks into a bricks-and-morter store only to find the movie he so wanted had been pinched by a snaffling single-minded, profit-hungry DVD-pimp.

I might find it slightly more acceptable if they'd kept one to watch for themselves, so they could enjoy it (or not, in the case of Salo), but to just buy them and not even care, just to sell them on.

But if I had the money, I might well do it. I mean, just LOOK at the prices these people are getting on Ebay!

What are your thoughts?

[Hendrik]

I hardly think 'John Doe' would have even heard of "Saló, let alone want to add it to his collection of such great, rockin' movies as "The Fifth Element", "There's Something About Mary", "American Pie", etc. ...

(signed) A Culture Snob

! !

Don't feel too oppressed -- it's not just DVDs. My wife and I have a small side-venture of attending toy shows to buy & sell collectible toys.

If you want to see some scoundrels, check the toy aisle at your local discount store --vultures, I tell you!


------------------
:::::::::::::::::::::imensioneer

[TampaFlyer]

The OOP movies would still be hard to find whether people were buying them for resale or not. The number of people with DVD players is constantly rising, while the supply of most of those titles is limited, so the prices have nowhere to go but up.

If nobody was auctioning the OOP discs, it would be a lot harder to find them.

My input--I've seen what people pay on Ebay for "OOP" DVD's-Platoon gets you $75 ($100 if it's still sealed), "Salo" gets you the same. "The Killer" by John Woo gets you $125..More if it's still sealed. The point I'm trying to make is that if a person wants the movie bad enough, they'll get it. I've seen a guy from Taiwan that sold DVD copies of all 3 Star Wars films for $225 EACH..so maybe these vultures have the right idea. I, myself, have close to 200 DVDs. I get more out of them by saying that I have that many than by getting $75 for my copy of Platoon, which by the way, kicks ass on DVD. The extra "making of" featurette alone makes this disc a keeper!!

[Rock]

Jon, here are The Rock's thoughts:

As some of you may or not be aware, 800.com had a "3 DVD's for $1" sale during Christmas season of '98. Yes, 3 DVD's for $1...33 cents apiece, basically, with free shipping to boot. It was limited to one set of three DVD's per person and was "while supplies lasted."

During this time, the DVD Resource Forum was still alive and well, and was the place to be. A fierce debate started, one of the fiercest debates The Rock has seen outside of the DVD vs. Divx fiasco. Basically, it was a moral debate, making it more difficult, in a way, than any other debate (like Divx or anamorphic support) where you can use lots of facts. There were many an individual posting about using multiple names, email addresses, credit cards, friends, and family to snag more than the allotted "3 per person" rule that 800.com had put forth. Their reasons for this being acceptable behavior ranged from "it doesn't really hurt anybody else" to "just because." And the gratuitous boasting by these people made it all the worse.

Needless to say, many others felt this was unethical. They cited the fact that the people taking advantage were violating the rules laid down by 800.com...perhaps making it legally wrong as well. The thing was, 800.com had a system set up, due to being new on the net, that allowed people to easily bypass the rules and go wild with multiple orders. With people split on the debate, ALMOST everyone agreed on one thing, however; that it was ok, probably in the legal sense, but in the "right to" sense for sure.

The majority of the people felt that the ones who made multiple '3 for 1' orders were pretty despicable, due to essentially depriving others of some of the titles available (because 800.com ran out of stock of several DVD's). This Criterion situation is very similar, and sorry if you didn't want all that history, it is just that your question brought about memories for The Rock and he had to share. Deja vu if you will.

Anyway, point of all this is that in one sense, there is nothing wrong with what they are doing. If they can stock up on out of print titles, then more power to them. And as TampaFlyer said, if there was no Ebay, and nobody auctioning them off, then it would be a lot harder to find the titles (probably) than it was/is/will be. Does The Rock, and likely most others here, think it is right? No. Does it suck that The Rock will probably never have a copy of The Killer or Spinal Tap due to the vultures snapping up the last copies when it became out of print, and him not wanting to pay around $300+ for it (which is what The Killer, Salo, and Spinal Tap are going for now)? Oh hell yeah! These people are just opportunists. Much like life, you snooze you lose. We snooze, and these people snatch up all copies and we pay the price (either by paying out the nose for a DVD or by being deprived of great films). Quite a shame, really.

The Rock feels your pain Jon. It makes him mad, but he realizes that other than ethical or moral implications (which are basically relative), there is nothing inherently wrong with what the Ebayers do. Heck, in a way, The Rock would love to have multiple copies of these titles so that he could watch one for himself and make big bucks off the copies he sells. Then again, that would make The Great One a hypocrite and he would probably feel bad for grabbing copies at MSRP and selling them to the "deprive ones" at a jacked up rate.

P.S.

The Rock fears that this thread will get another morality debate going. In a way, that would be fun, but here is hoping on the side of 'no.'


DVDFile.Com Moderator
LucasP@Wabash.edu

------------------
WWF SmackDown! is sports entertainment featuring trained professionals. If you try these moves at home, you're a complete jackass who deserves the paralysis you're undoubtedly risking.

[TampaFlyer]

I'm also curious how many of the people paying high prices at auctions are doing so because they really like the movie vs. how many are looking at it as an investment. In other words, paying $100 now, hoping they can resell it later for even more.

I wonder how many people bought extra copies of the not-so-limited-after-all Disney animation expecting to auction it off.

[manigrasso]

Although I don't like the way Disney handled the whole limited edition fiasco, it does please me to know some schmucks probably bought lots of extra copies of these movies as "Limited Editions," only to discover that not only will they stay available, they'll be cheaper!!! Bwahahahahahaha!!!

Rock,

I normally don't register for these forums, but your post made me do it. I'm sure the cult-films enthusiasts on this forum know all about Synapse's Deabeat at Dawn controversy with (ugh) Jim Van Bebber. I've heard that there are a number of online retailers that are already selling out of this disc, which will likely remain at the 18,000 or something copies already pressed. Now, you've got to wonder, how many of those people really want to see this obscure movie, and how many are just trying to pimp it? Now, here's another question that applies to me a bit. How many of these people, do you think, are buying a copy (a single copy), not because they want to pimp it, not because they've seen it and think it's awesome, but because they're WORRIED they might be missing something good and will have to pay $300 for it from some scoundrel some day? Well, I was seized by this last fear and ordered a copy of the disc, out of sheer paranoia about this becoming the next Re-Animator. Anybody eles have any opinions on this?


Jeremy Lunt

[Rock]

Ragheb, it is nice for you to register, even if you only post this one time. Glad to know you read the forum, and now that we officially know you exist...WELCOME!

Anyway, The Rock is buying a copy of Deadbeat at Dawn because he likes to have cult hits and build his film library. It has plenty of extras and sounds intriguing. Now, he also doesn't want to find out it rules down the line, say, after renting it, and then have to try and get it on Ebay for a couple hundy. Like with The Killer and Spinal Tap--The Rock doesn't own them and now he is screwed.

To answer your question specifically: Probably a high percentage are buying the movie as to profit later. There are a couple people, can't remember where, that have bragged on this forum about grabbing up copies of Spinal, thus having around 4 copies just laying around. Stuff like that sickens The Rock, because those people aren't buying them up in order to trade them to other DVD lovers or to sell them at only a slight (or no) markup to other film enthusiasts. No, they are denying someone in their town, that might want the movie, from owning it, and they are being selfish. But, enough ranting.

As for the second question, The Rock is buying Deadbeat for reasons he talked about above. That is, he doesn't want to miss out and end up paying out the nose later. And, hey, if worse comes to worse, The Rock ends up hating the movie and can just sell his copy for what he paid for it or higher. But if The Rock likes the movie, then great, he doesn't have to pay through the nose for it. Either way, The Rock wins. There are probably a lot of people doing this too.

Now, the actual percentage of sales that come from fans of this movie? HAHA! A very miniscule amount would be The Great One's guess.


DVDFile.Com Moderator
LucasP@Wabash.edu

------------------
The Rock says: Who needs Dairy Queen when you've got cigarettes?

Thanks, Rock!

I got my copy of Deadbeat in the mail yesterday and watched it last night. It's not the greatest movie, it was obviously shot on an extremely low budget, and the lips don't sync on many occasions probably because they didn't have the money for onsite sound-recording. The acting is mediocre, etc. The DVD itself looks as good as you could expect it too under the circumstances. I suspect Van Bebber has been watching the early VHS print of the movie for the past twn years, at a time when many low-budget VHS releases didn't look so good, and doesn't realize that his guys didn't do the hottest job of filming his movie, and that's his complaint. The supplements are very good, I only listened to a little bit of the commentary because I wantd to focus on the plot never having seen it before, but from what I heard Van Bebber sounds sober and quite fluent! Oh, and there is A LOT of great gory action. You did right in ordering it, definetly, despite the unfixable problems. If anybody else is into these movies, check it out!


Jeremy Lunt

The Rock:

Rather than sit idly by the sidelines and let this topic wither, I've decided to pony up and say that I am one of those people who bought up copies of This Is Spinal Tap at MSRP. I have one for myself, and four sitting sealed on my shelf.

When the announcement came that Spinal would no longer be printed, I went to DVD Price Search and did a quick search for it. One retailer still had copies in stock, so I bought three at $30 each. Three months later, I did it again, and sold one on eBay ($70) to get back some of the money.

It's simple, really. It's an investment. I saw a commodity that I thought would be in high demand, and I was right. Now, the same thing's happening with other titles, but I decided not to go for those (e.g. Army of Darkness (LE) is going for $60 or so already).

The bottom line is, I'm a collector, appraching 300 titles, including Platoon, Hard Boiled, The Sound of Music, Help! and, of course, Spinal. I don't have Little Shop of Horrors, though, because it's not worth $200-300 to me, and I got into DVD too late to get it cheaper.

So yes, for now, I'm depriving four people from having Spinal. And sure, sometimes I feel a little guilty about it. But judging from the posts on this topic saying, for example

---

Heck, in a way, The Rock would love to have multiple copies of these titles so that he could watch one for himself and make big bucks off the copies he sells. - The Rock

---

But if I had the money, I might well do it. - Jon

---

I can sleep pretty well tonight.


------------------
Better living through money.