© Copyright Clive Young

From Videography, April, 2002.

Everything You Ever Wanted In A DVD...And Less
By Clive Young

There are many things to see in New York City--Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and, sadly, even Ground Zero. But one of the more common sights in recent years has been the proliferation of unlicensed vendors selling pirated CDs and videotapes on the sidewalks of the Big Apple. Now DVDs can be added to that list...maybe.

The illegal booty is familiar to most New Yorkers--Five bucks will get you a hastily burned pirate CDR (usually hip-hop or salsa) in a jewel box with color-photocopied covers. The VHS tapes (also $5.00) are somewhat more advanced, with graphics and text grabbed liberally from the internet and slapped on to often well-designed packages. The tapes, however, are almost always blurry copies of films covertly videotaped from the back of a movie theater. If you're buying a comedy, better hope that the audience didn't laugh or you won't hear the movie.

Typically, the discs and VHS tapes are laid out carefully on a blanket, which serves a dual purpose--it keeps jewel cases from getting scratched, but more importantly, it facilitates a quick scooping-up of one's illegal wares. Once they stuff the blanket into a cardboard box, vendors have a police-proof CD sanctuary--cops can't inspect the contents of the box without a warrant. That is, of course, providing that anyone cares; it's not unusual to pass half a dozen vendors openly selling the same illegal products on the same block while hundreds of people stream by. Last summer, one enterprising CD seller set up outside the offices of Capitol and Virgin Records on the corner of 23rd Street and Park Avenue South--and then came back every day for months before finally getting busted.

With DVD's acceptance booming and the slow but steady proliferation of consumer DVD burners, it was only a matter of time before homemade, snap-cased movie discs turned up on street corners. In the last eight months, sidewalk vendors have occasionally sold "professional" Asian pirate copies of Star Wars, The Godfather and Gladiator among others, but they're usually few and far between.

Recently, however, on 32nd Street and 7th Avenue, one seller had the typical assortment of CDs and videos, but on the edge of his blanket sat irresistible treasure--Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and a handful of other illegal DVDs. Wrapped in clear plastic bags, the cases couldn't be opened, but their covers featured a mixture of English and Asian text, virtually assuring that at the least, they were copies of Asian pirate discs.

One quick $10 transaction later, Videography owned a pirated copy of Lord of the Rings. Walking around the corner, reading the color photocopied cover was amusing--the front cover was a Lord of the Rings poster, but the text on the back was about the film Woman on Top--and the screen credits were from Disney's The Kid. Mismatched elements like these are not uncommon on pirate VHS tapes packages, but it gave us pause for thought. Shaking the case was a soundless endeavor, then a hurried opening of the sealed bag revealed that we'd been suckered: The case was empty. A dash back around the corner revealed that not only was our money gone, so was the seller.

Sadly, it's one the oldest tricks in the book; in the 1980s, New York newspapers often wrote about con artists who sold VCRs off the back of a truck on Canal Street for $50. Unwitting buyers would carry the weighty cardboard boxes home, only to discover they'd bought a pair of Manhattan phone books instead of then cutting-edge technology.

Nonetheless, it seems inevitable that sooner rather than later, pirate DVDs of current films will join the sidewalk inventories of New York. Although it's always been a rule of thumb that you get what you pay for when you buy pirate goods, for now it seems that you get even less.