Cobbling together something resembling the original is a cool idea, but don't the originals still exist somewhere? Surely not all of the original prints have been destroyed? Aren't there movie archivists somewhere carefully preserving every version of every major movie?

It is regrettable that the law draws no distinction between such a situation and the sale of counterfeit goods on eBay. Section 1201 does not take intent into account, whereas the aforementioned "pirate code" essentially consists of norms developed by the community itself.

Reminds me of Ben Hur, it had that green sky tinge to it as well.

I quite liked the Despecialized editions when I watched them quite a while ago, for anyone who hasn't seen them - the audio remastering is very appreciated (VHS rarely has good audio), but certainly not the poorly-fitting CGI additions.

It gets worse:

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2181751/dvds-with-t...

Interesting they chose The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, probably because of the 60th anniversary?

They didn't mention that probably the Mondo release of that film is the 'best' one? Someone else did a good version count of all releases: https://originaltrilogy.com/topic/id/136114

Curious what the upcoming DCP release is sourced on

GoodBadUgly_FTR_S-235_EN-XX_10_4K_20140330_DLA_IOP_OV

GoodBadUgly_FTR_S-235_EN-XX_10_4K_PRKC_20160613_MPS_IOP_VF

I laughed out loud when I saw the George Lucas quote. He is the master of defiling his own work.

one of my projects on the backlog is to figure out how to combine the dvd copies and the bluray copies of the x-files so that I can have 4:3 episode in hd. especially in the first couple of seasons they crop a lot of stuff to fit it into widescreen, I'm waiting until AI gets good enough that I can using the dvd quality original fill in and upscale the cropped part of the hd episodes.

Dear copyright holders,

You deserve to get compensated. You should get compensated.

But stop acting against the will of the consumers. And stop fighting the technology.

Remember when you thought VHS and DVD would kill the movie industry? You were wrong then, and you're wrong again, now.

Make a very simple website where people can search for actors, search for directors, search keywords, search awards...

And then show us torrent links for all of the content, all of the versions, all of the audio formats, all of the video resolutions, all of the languages, the director's cut, with or without subtitles baked in, theatrical release, re-release, fan edits, all of it. Make it easy for someone else to document a new version, and share the torrent. Set up Popcorn Time or whatever, if you're smart.

I download the content on my own dime. I'll even seed it for a bit, because I like it, and why not?

And then, let me buy a decryption key. Make the price reasonable. Make it Pay What You Want, if you're really smart. When you're setting that price, think real hard about the fact that the illegal option is literally one click away for anyone technically savvy. That decryption key should be shared for all of the different versions available to me. I pay once, I get all the formats, now, and forever. Let me save the key to my account, if you want to set up accounts and recommendations, and etc. Let me save the key in my Plex or Jellyfin server. Or as file metadata, or in a json in a zip file at the end of the file...

Say it's legal for me to pass that license on to one of my kids, when I die.

If you're real smart, grant me the right to legally loan that key to a friend, so they can watch the movie, and then return the key (or I get to auto-revoke it after a number of days).

Hell, tell me a price to have a private (or public?) screening of the movie at a theater that rents out screens.

Cocoon is not available on streaming. That's so dumb. It will enter the public domain in 2081. Until then, earn some reasonable money, by making a legal way for people to do what they're already doing. As frictionless as possible.

And if you're a genius, come up with a way for someone to show you their DVD, Blu-Ray, VHS copy of a movie, and give them that decryption key, for free. They already bought your movie once. Don't make them regret it. Reward them for it. Send it out to anyone who "bought" the movie on AppleTV, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Amazon, etc. But I doubt you're that smart.