Rawr... I just bought a buncha Jdrama off of Ebay (Hana Yori Dango, Gokusen, 1 Litre of Tears, and Attention Please) and now I'm starting to wonder if these things are really legal O____o

Anybody know if these versions of the dramas are legal distribution? I would appreciate a fast response so that I could decided if I should return it or not. Thank you very much

Here is a link to the store.
http://stores.ebay.com/Japmove
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Anyone?
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Wrong forum.

You should be asking this question in the Buy, Sell, Trade forum.

Moving.

Ok. Sorry about that.
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Don't look strictly legal to me. But I could be wrong. I bought an anime series from a different eBay seller once, the packaging quality was good but it was obviously NOT a genuine DVD box set (after looking at what was available elsewhere) and the packaging looked like what's shown on that store.

Of course, it COULD be a legitimate Chinese distributor of those titles, but how are you to know?

I purchased a couple of those dramas. I think they're high quality Malaysian bootlegs. They have all sorts of "official" stickers/labels on them but some of them look like they've been recorded directly from Japanese television. They'll have a network logo on the corner of the screen and occasionally leave in emergency Japanese news scrolls, commercials, and the like.

See, that's exactly my problem. The subtitles are also obviously by a non-fluent speaker, and that is what alerted me to the fact that it may be goofy. However, if this isn't legal, then are there any legal distributions of English subtitled Jdramas?

So you think they are illegal? T-T Shoot, I feel horrible now. And I talked to the seller, but it says on their page they only off exchanges for returns and stuff, not refunds.
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Kisshu wrote:

See, that's exactly my problem. The subtitles are also obviously by a non-fluent speaker, and that is what alerted me to the fact that it may be goofy. However, if this isn't legal, then are there any legal distributions of English subtitled Jdramas? So you think they are illegal? T-T Shoot, I feel horrible now. And I talked to the seller, but it says on their page they only off exchanges for returns and stuff, not refunds.

Legal distribution of English subbed Jdramas? I think there might be some official releases from Japan that are English subbed on occassion but Jdramas from Japan are expensive (over a hundred bucks). And there's also region code incompatiblity.

I was just inspecting the disk. Would an illegal copy be able to have this written around the disk?

"The Compilation P & © 2005 RE ZHUN TAIWAN CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized Copying, Reproduction, Hiring, Lending Public Performance And Broadcasting are Prohibited."

The P had a little circle around it just like &copy; but I couldn't find that character 0_<;;;
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Anybody can put anything they like on a disc: It doesn't mean it's real or legal

You could try www.yesasia.com for asian dramas. But as was mentioned above, they will be expensive and probably not subtitled.

Fansubbed drama is a bit of a grey area: The producers seem to turn a blind eye to the practice of fansubbing, much like with anime fansubs. But i'm sure that they would object to fansubbed drama being sold on eBay

Anime Dad wrote:

Anybody can put anything they like on a disc: It doesn't mean it's real or legal You could try www.yesasia.com for asian dramas. But as was mentioned above, they will be expensive and probably not subtitled. Fansubbed drama is a bit of a grey area: The producers seem to turn a blind eye to the practice of fansubbing, much like with anime fansubs. But i'm sure that they would object to fansubbed drama being sold on eBay

With a few exceptions, all J-Dramas with English subtitles are bootlegs.

And if they're being sold as such on eBay, it's most likely illegal. But no one appears to be really cracking down, so it's up to the individual's judgement.

There are also some fansubbers who expressly advise others not to use their subs for distro, yet they turn around and do it themselves... Rather hypocritical, ne?

There's quite a lot of movies that are available subtitled on yesasia, but I haven't seen any series (didn't look too closely though)

http://global.yesasia.com/en/Japanese/Videos.aspx

Anime Dad wrote:

There's quite a lot of movies that are available subtitled on yesasia, but I haven't seen any series (didn't look too closely though) http://global.yesasia.com/en/Japanese/Videos.aspx

I would think all those movies/dramas/CDs that YesAsia sells would have to be legal copies, else they'd be in deep doo.

I'd say so too. They seem to be a large (and legit) organisation

Anime Dad wrote:

I'd say so too. They seem to be a large (and legit) organisation

I'd say they were the Asian equivalent of Amazon.com.

Yup.

Fact about legal Japanese Dramas:

200$ for a DVD box set... Legal
25$ for the same DVD box set.... bootleg.

It's not because it has a nice cover and wrapping that it's legal.
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Ok. I just contacted the seller. This is what they said....

"This is Original DVD , actually i have B-certificate and hologram
from my supplier."

What the heck does that mean?
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Kisshu wrote:

What the heck does that mean?

It means he/she doesn't want to refund you the money.

bmwracer wrote:

It means he/she doesn't want to refund you the money.

Keep in mind that they might come from Taiwan/HK/China. I've seen Japanese dramas/music sold at Chinese video stores.

dochira wrote:

Keep in mind that they might come from Taiwan/HK/China. I've seen Japanese dramas/music sold at Chinese video stores.

But is that legal? Lol. I've gotten them at Hmong New Year before. My friend invited me and I was like the only white chick there.

But back on topic, would it be legal for them to be sold in Chinese video stores?
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RAWR