Sonic The Hedgehog The Movie (OVA, ADV Films) bootleg copies

[Sillydillo]

Hey all! Not sure if this is the right section of the forum, but figured I'd post about this somewhere!

I've recently discovered there are fake copies of the OOP ADV Films release Sonic The Hedgehog The Movie:

floating around on eBay. Finally got a real copy and thought it'd be helpful if I compared the two side-by-side.


Front packaging shot. The one in the white case is the authentic copy, the black copy is the bootleg.
Few key differences: The inside of the Sonic logo's "o" and "c" look wrong. There are extra outlines visible inside, as well as being the wrong color (blue instead of white)


There's a black mark on Sonic's shoe that isn't on the authentic copy - which comes directly from the cover scan on the Best Buy listing for the DVD.


Back packaging shot. The legitimate copy rounds the bottom 2 corners of the coverart, but not the top corners. The fake rounds all four corners.



Note the differences in fonts used for the synopsis and UPC/barcode - the fake's is a lot skinnier looking.



Note the off-looking DVD and Dolby Digital logos, as well as the differences between ADV Kids logos. The wrong DVD logo is used on the disc as well. The arrow next to Knuckles' foot isn't visible on the fake.



Spine comparison - much lower quality character images, logo looks slightly off as well.

Hope this helps! Not sure if I'm allowed to list the eBay sellers selling fake copies here, but the main one sells them new with a stock image for $40, and I am aware there's another seller that's recasing these fake copies into white cases like authentic copies use.

[renegadeviking]

how do you know it's bootleg, because ADV Films is bankrupt. Malaysia makes inexpensive anime boxsets region free dvds. I own some malaysia dvds.

[Sillydillo]

Originally Posted by renegadeviking

how do you know it's bootleg, because ADV Films is bankrupt.

Brand-new copies of long-OOP items, sold for prices that are too good to be true, using different cases and lower-quality artwork? Pretty basic bootleg 101.
If you have the bootleg, rest easy knowing it shouldn't be any worse than the real deal- both are DVD5. It's a good copy, fooled me for a while there.

Originally Posted by renegadeviking

Malaysia makes inexpensive anime boxsets region free dvds. I own some malaysia dvds.

I don't know how to tell you this but that sounds phony as all hell. If you're happy with them, cool! But that doesn't make 'em not bootleg copies.

[Mikezilla3k]

Originally Posted by Sillydillo

I don't know how to tell you this but that sounds phony as all hell. If you're happy with them, cool! But that doesn't make 'em not bootleg copies.

Eh, Malaysia releases are a bit odd.

They're not licensed releases but they're not illegal copies due to Malaysian Copyright laws working to where anyone can release them if the rights holders hasn't released them yet. Kinda like with Spain and Blu-Ray releases.

They're grey area releases, not licensed but they're not strictly illegal bootlegs either.

That being said, they're the only chance of stuff like the Japanese version of Pokemon ever seeing a English Friendly release at all...

As for the Sonic OVA and rights..............I actually don't know who owns it right now. Think the company in Japan that made it went bankrupt so the rights there were lost. And with SEGA focusing more on their own game universe and the Paramount movies, I doubt they'll go through the effort of figuring out who owns it.

[Sillydillo]

Originally Posted by Mikezilla3k

Eh, Malaysia releases are a bit odd.

They're not licensed releases but they're not illegal copies due to Malaysian Copyright laws working to where anyone can release them if the rights holders hasn't released them yet. Kinda like with Spain and Blu-Ray releases.

They're grey area releases, not licensed but they're not strictly illegal bootlegs either.

That being said, they're the only chance of stuff like the Japanese version of Pokemon ever seeing a English Friendly release at all...

They're still done without the permission of the rightsholders, so even if they aren't strictly illegal in a country that doesn't uphold copyright laws, I'd still probably consider them bootleg because of that. Like, they aren't real.

Originally Posted by Mikezilla3k

As for the Sonic OVA and rights..............I actually don't know who owns it right now. Think the company in Japan that made it went bankrupt so the rights there were lost. And with SEGA focusing more on their own game universe and the Paramount movies, I doubt they'll go through the effort of figuring out who owns it.

The rights to the Sonic OVA seem very up in the air. It's currently available digitally in Japan through Bandai Channel. Discotek has attempted to license it, but Sega has said it's not available to license. The dub might have been owned by ADV Films? Who knows if that's even possible to rerelease. If Discotek can't make it happen I'm not sure anyone can.

In the context of these copies, they're passed off as region 1 US and don't come from Malaysia, pretty sure it'd still be considered a bootleg. Or maybe a counterfeit?

[renegadeviking]

There is some South Korean region 1 dvds for $40 on ebay. Good deal. English dub.

[SpazeBlue]

Originally Posted by Hydra Spectre

[Show spoiler]

As can be seen in this image, I also have a DVD+R of the Battle Angel Alita OVA.
Both of my burned DVDs are from 1:1 DVDISOs I downloaded from torrents, which I burned on DVDs. They are quite easy to burn thanks to being DVD5s.

I also did similar bootlegs for ADV's Neon Genesis Evangelion DVDs (the Perfect Collection on DVD5, the Director's Cuts on DVD9, and the Platinum Editions on DVD9). I also have the Manga movies of Evangelion, on two DVD5s (for Death and Rebirth) and one DVD9 (for The End of Evangelion).

You're... showing off pirated content?

...You know what site you're on, right?