BOOTLEGS

[Severina Amadenna Salem-Snape]

Relating to this topic:
A Los Angeles man who used a device to access pay-TV movies via 
satellite illegally, record them on his computer, then copy them onto 
DVD discs and sell them on eBay was sentenced to three years' 
probation Wednesday. William Jefferson Philputt was also ordered to 
pay a fine of $817 to the Motion Picture Association of America 
(MPAA) and serve six months in home confinement. Meanwhile, it was 
reported that a Japanese businessman in Tokyo had received a three-
year suspended sentence for posting A Beautiful Mind on an Internet 
peer-to-peer network. The MPAA hailed the outcome of the case as "a 
judicial milestone not only in Japan, but globally." 

Buying bootlegs does hurt people - why see HP when I can buy the 
bootleg - Warner Brothers response - why make the fifth HP when 
people are buying the bootleg - makes sense to me - you are paying a 
thief for somebody else's property and yet someone sees nothing wrong 
with that...I heard about a month or so ago that California is 
focusing undercover investigations on DVD bootlegs (either copying 
the DVD or filming the original in the theatre). This is a major 
industry and although not as damaging as illegal drugs are to 
addicts, bootlegs are diverting police forces to stop this practice.

These criminals are profiting off material that is not theirs - and 
if you buy a bootleg you are supporting them.