I have a question about DVD’s that are “manufactured on demand”.  Amazon.com sells these and there are plenty of other, smaller sellers that do the same sort of thing.  In some cases the films etc may have been released on a 'silver' DVD at some point, but in others never made available in this way or only ever on VHS.  Yet some are definately official releases; (bands often do this for live performaces for example).  These seem to normally be supplied on DVD-R media, sometimes with no sleeve.  In terms of contributing profiles, when does one of these become a bootleg, illegal or privately created and thus not appropriate to contribute? 

Thanks.  Paul

If they are official studio licensed releases, it doesn't really matter if they're a factory silver DVD or a DVD-R.

Amazon sells a lot of MOD DVD-R's from various studios. The ones from MGM and Universal actually do have valid UPC codes, and they'll show "Manufactured by Amazon.com" at the top of the UPC code on the back cover.

As for releases that had an official 'silver' DVD release in the past, and were simply reissued later as MOD DVD-R's, I would think that the original 'silver' DVD should be the original source for all information, except perhaps the Disc ID which may be different between the releases.

The problem is confirming if they are indeed official releases, or simply a very nice bootleg.

Do Warner Archive titles have UPCs?

Quoting Staid S Barr:

Quote:
What original information would you propose to take from an earlier 'silver' release?

MOD releases from Amazon or Universal have a UPC, technical details, a different cover, release date and price, and also all other information should at least be checked against the actual new release. So in effect, the older release can be dispensed with altogether.

The fact that the new release may have multiple disc IDs may be a nuisance in some cases, but this also happens with sliver releases. It does mean that people may need to search by UPC or title rather than putting the DVD in a PC drive.

I meant if the earlier 'silver' release has the same UPC code as a later MOD DVD-R release. I would consider the DVD-R a standard re-release in that case, even if the cover is different. If they have a different UPC code (or none at all) then yeah the DVD-R could be profiled on its own.

Quoting Ace_of_Sevens:

Quote:
Do Warner Archive titles have UPCs?

I own 16 Warner Archive DVD-R's and all have a UPC code.

Okay, that’s helpful.  Thank you.

I think the problem I have (which is what Katatonia said earlier) really comes down to how to tell if a disc is:

a bootleg or illegal,

or

privately created.

It would be interesting to know how people spot good fakes; I’ve had a look around the Internet for information on this but never came across a really good ABC of how to do this, as most just concentrated on the simply stuff like badly printed sleeves, heads at the bottom of the frame, etc.

However, in a way what’s more difficult to define is what’s privately created vs legal professionally produced discs.  I can buy MOD DVD-Rs of films online from lots of places, which are copies of hard to obtain films.  I can also go and make a film with some mates and make copies on DVD-R to distribute to 5, 100, or 1,000 people; or buy a music performance DVD made by the band itself that might sell 2,000 copies.  In the latter cases am I (or the band) professional enough to count?  Where would people draw the “privately created vs legal professionally produced discs” line on these, with respect to contributing?

In my opinion, the first question to look into is the source of the DVD. In the case of Warner, Universal, or Amazon's CreateSpace (but not Amazon's MarketSpace  ), the companies bring out a catalogue of products, and clearly indicate that these are DVD-Rs and explain their origins if that is relevant.

Also, where a DVD is bought from a band's (or another copyright holder's) own website, that must be okay. The professionality of the band does not come into the equation, it's their ownership of the content that counts

On the other hand there are scores of internet sources that provide DVD-Rs of widely varying quality, but the website itself and its catalogue are usually clue enough that they are not properly authorized.