How much should we pay for DVD all series?

[AndyThomas]

All of Happosai's comments above are completely correct - in addition, it would also be possible for legal action to be taken against you by the copyright owners for an "account of profit". Basically they could turn round and claim any money you had made from you, by simple virtue of the fact that you never had any legal right to exploit their copyright material. It's also clear that the music studos, and gradually the movie studios, are seeking out distributors, even those who are distributing "free" on peer to peer networks where no profit is involved. Because it's still a breach of copyright even if you charge nothing.On the flip side, were Star Fleet not being copied at an amateur level this site and others might not be here and there would be nothing to demonstrate a continued interest in the show which would prompt a commercial release. Taking that line of thought on, though, what would happen if a commercial company felt the market was so flooded with pirate copies that no-one would buy an offiicial release?One other point - if you can afford to give a discount to SFXB readers, which I'd forgotten or not appreciated before, then as a matter of logic you must be charging others more which in turn means that you do more than cover your costs normally unless you're selling to SFXB readers at a loss. As I noted above, that could have implications and could suggest that you're not operating on a "trader" basis. However, as I understand it the anime fansub system typically allows for some element of cost of equipment depreciation to be recovered.I'm trying to be objective here and we've had this debate many times over the years - at the end of the day it's down to the individual sellers as to what they want to do and I would rather see people buying for a set price than being ripped off on eBay, which is why I maintain my links to the various sellers.

[Happosai]

Whilst there is little I can (or will) do about people selling copies of Star Fleet for a profit (regardless of how large or small), I thought I'd point out to people on here that the sellers are basically profitting from these sales, with little justification, and that it is possible to obtain copies for 'free'.One of my interests is anime (Japanese animation), and there is a long history of people supplying copies of shows to fans that otherwise would not be able to get hold of them in a form that they could enjoy. 'Fansubs' (shows only available in Japanese language which are translated and subtitled by fans for fans) have been produced for the last couple of decades.Before the popularity/practicality of producing/distributing digital videos, fansubs were produced and distributed on video tape. The people translating and subtitling the tapes did so at no cost to others, even though it required special knowledge and equipment (multi-format VHS decks and a computer with a genlock to add the subs). The tapes were generally distributed by third-party distributors, who would handle the duplication. To be considered a legitimate distributor, rather than a bootlegger, they could only charge other people the cost of the media (or people could supply their own) and distribution costs, plus a nominal amount for 'wear and tear' on equipment (VCRs would suffer from this over time) -- this was in the order of pence, usually by rounding up the total figure to the nearest pound or something. If fans considered that a distributor was overcharging, then they would generally be blacklisted as a bootlegger.With the advent of cheaper/higher spec computer equipment, it became easier to produce and distribute fansubs digitally (i.e. on CD). The same rules regarding costs applied as for tapes, except 'wear and tear' was considered less of a real issue, and distributors were expected to keep their prices in line with the ever falling cost of CD-R media.With the rise in popularity of high-speed Internet access, physical media fansub distribution has all but dried up. Fansubs are now distributed via P2P networks at no charge to the end users. There are numerous shows being fansubbed at any one time, both the latest series being shown on Japanese TV and older, more difficult to obtain shows, including some obscure shows that aren't even readily available in their original Japanese. People are sourcing, ripping, translating, subtitling, encoding and distributing these at no cost to others.Fansub ethics say that once a show has been licenced for a commercial release in the language that they were fansubbing it in, they should no longer produce or distribute fansubs of it. Also, anime studios will sometimes request that shows are not fansubbed, or it is obvious that a show will be getting a non-Japanese language release, in which case ethical fansubbers will leave it alone. Unfortunately, there are a few unethical fansubbers and distributors out there.The antithesis of the fansubbers are the bootleggers, who sell pirated copies of anime shows for profit -- these are either blatant rip-offs of commercially translated releases, other people's fansubbed releases, or, in the case of many Far Eastern pirates, poorly produced in-house translations. The commerical bootlegs are packaged to make them look legitimate, even though their contents are often poor quality (worse than fansubs, which are produced for free).Whilst I'm not saying that the people selling copies of Star Fleet are out-and-out bootleggers, they certainly aren't comparable to the anime fansubbers, who put a lot more effort into their creations for no money whatsoever, or the off-line distributors, who only charge to cover media/distribution costs.[Happosai]

[Crash]

I think Happosai has a point - I can think of a lot of people who have put a tonne of sheer effort into projects to do with the series; websites, graphics, coding - you name it. I can't necessarily remember personally being charged money for any of it - and I wouldn't dream of operating in a different manner myself. obviously I wouldn't starting giving out discs for free but as happosai says - better to try and match the costs and maybe round it up a little.I think its just sad that 99% of people can't get their heads around this idea - there's people who just can't understand the concept of not profiteering and exploiting things to their greatest advantage.( - they usually live in London)But after all - you just gotta be smart and not be taken advantage of by Ebay jockeys. I reckon 15 quid for 4 DVD-Rs, postage etc, the time it took to record them etc. isn't exorbitantly bad. Especially when you consider I don't know how else to get the full series let alone in a format that (if taken care of) could outlast me.

[Crash]

"I only charge £12 for forum members, £15 is my normal site price."- In which case I stand corrected, sorry." < not smart"- pardon, what was that?

[AndyThomas]

Couple of points:LongLostChildhoodWonderReturned - your films are automatically your copyright. In the UK you don't need to register them or anything, although it would be helpful to be able to demonstrate you made them. Anything you do in your own time, creatively, is your copyright and you can prevent people abusing that copyright.There's a very good reason why those eBay sellers pop up briefly. Selling bootlegs is against the terms and conditions of use of all auction web sites. Therefore, eBay is likely to shut down those accounts which are selling bootlegs in breach of copyright. But of course eBay has a big market so they will pop up from time to time if they think they can get away with it and make a few quid. I can't say to you that people who are listed on my site don't sell on eBay - that's a matter for them. But if you buy from someone on eBay who has a very low rating, is newly registered, and is selling on digital media, well, you're at risk.Unfortunately people who look for these series on eBay may well get ripped off if they don't realise there are fans providing a service to other fans off eBay; those fans that do provide that service probably wouldn't want to breach eBay's rules even by doing "But It Now" auctions, which is unfortunate, but there you are.Star Fleet is quite unusual in the sense that it isn't in the fansub category Happosai identifies, and yet was never actually released in full on video over here and was released in a different video format when it was released in English. But the fact remains that the show remains the copyright of the original creators and so you expose yourself to risk in selling it on.

[Tim]

Hi, I am new to hereCan people tell me how to buy the complete set on dvd.I am new to this forum - but grew up watching Starfleet and have spent years looking for the collection.I have only just really started looking on the internet and have found ebay trying to sell it - raretv selling it at £15.00 and a friend on mine said try here...Can anyone advise me as I really would like to get hold of all the proper 24 seriesthanks