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| To respond to this month's Editorial, send comments to: Editorial@modelrailroadnews.com |
Pirates on the Mainline! |
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| Really? Pirates? Buckling their swashes with eye patches and peg legs? No. Instead of sabers, these guys have DVD and CD duplication equipment. They don’t pose beside the ship’s wheel on the quarterdeck of a privateer; they are more likely found at train shows or flea markets. Instead of gold plundered on the Spanish Main, these people deal in videos ripped from honest producers. Ask the right question and out comes a box from under their table, this one filled with disks and tapes. You don’t get the pretty cases with printed covers; more often you get cheap paper envelopes. I’ve heard complaints from purchasers who said that the disks were very poorly copied and the tapes had tracking problems. Surprisingly, the purchasers often paid nearly as much as a bona fide copy would cost. Errol Flynn wouldn’t star in this one; it’s too tawdry. There’s no glamour or glitz. Instead, we have a guy who buys a video and then complains that he didn’t like it and wants his money back. Meanwhile, he has made a copy and now will produce a dozen copies of the copy, selling them here and there. Of course, most of the video people are wise to this scheme. They’ll replace a defective product with a like item, but no, the guy won’t get his money back. To answer the next question, yes; this is against the law. Currently, the FBI is investigating the piracy of railroad videos; some people may pay fines or even do some jail time, but that won’t stop the problem. I personally wouldn’t have thought the theft of railfan videos would be that lucrative, but apparently it is. The problem is not the people who make duplicates; it’s the people who buy them. Most of these counterfeit copies are very obviously bogus. Look at a catalog or go on line and you will see the covers in bright, exciting color. The disk or tape label is also very obviously produced in a commercial manner. When you are offered a paper sleeve with a handwritten title containing a disk with the same title also scribbled on it with a marker, that should be a pretty good clue. So you saved five bucks; is it worth it? First, let’s understand how railroad videos are produced. Since the early days of movie cameras, people have taken pictures of trains. Whether the movie is based upon restored films or recently shot tape, all of it comes at a price. Old film libraries aren’t free and require immense amount of time to glean out the usable footage. The images have to be put through a film chain, a device which converts a film movie into tape. Very expensive computer systems go through this footage, frame-by-frame, and restore the quality; there are generally 30 frames every second, over a hundred thousand frames per hour. That requires a huge amount of processing, editing, and research. Modern footage isn’t any easier. You can’t get away with some cheap camcorder; broadcast quality cameras run twenty-five grand or more. People who know how to use them aren’t cheap, either. If you want to shoot on railroad property, you need to get their permission. It becomes a location shoot, meaning lodging, meals, transportation, and hard work. Then comes hours of editing, research, and studio work. It’s a wonder that anyone makes any money at train videos. It can be a very hard genre in which to work. Train lovers are notoriously fussy, so producers have to work hard to deliver pleasing results. Imagine what it would be like to go through all of this only to find that your masterpiece is being bootlegged. It might be one thing to not make very much money on a video; it’s something else to have it flat stolen. If you want to loan your videos to someone else to watch, that’s cool. If you want to put on a video for friends to enjoy, no problem. But really, if it’s worth stealing, it’s worth buying. When you plunk down an honest purchase price, not only do you get a guaranteed quality product, you are also supporting the producer. If you want to maintain a flow of good videos, it’s really a very small price to pay. |
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| John Sipple, Editor | |
| To respond to this month's Editorial, send comments to: Editorial@modelrailroadnews.com | |
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