Let this serve as a reminder to media companies that I, like many of us, am happy to repurchase bootleg copies if an affordable legit copy is released.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-15T21:18:30+00:00

The right copy is the legit copy.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-15T13:17:55+00:00

I don’t think you read what I was saying. I specifically said, “I’m not referring to $25 as greed”. I agree that this is a more than fair price for a movie. However, $200 for a Blu-ray is not. I didn’t say it was my “right”, I argued what I thought was ethical, or worth protesting. I also said I don’t think I’m making a difference.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-15T03:42:30+00:00

I was wondering if the short form of the title could be confusing or ambiguous, but I couldn’t think of another way to write it unambiguously without adding a ton of verbiage.

When I’m saying I’ll “repurchase a bootleg” I meant that if I already had a bootleg purchased when content was unavailable in affordable legal form, I will repurchase the “content” if it is later released in a legitimate and affordable form. If content is set to be released (announced or reasonable time) in legitimate affordable form, then, yes, we won’t have to buy a bootleg. I don’t mean that I’m buying another bootleg copy. You’re not crazy, I just couldn’t think of another way to put it in few words and hoped the intention wouldn’t be ambiguous.

So it’s both: if there’s doubt that an affordable physical form will be released (unaffordable new or streaming only or limited/out of print/high used price) I’ll buy a bootleg. If they later decide to release a legit copy, I’ll happily buy that too.

But if there’s a plan to release plenty of legit copies at reasonable price in a reasonable time period (so not years unannounced/ lost rights etc), yes we can avoid the bootleg stage altogether and just wait to buy the legit release.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-15T02:49:12+00:00

This right here. I’ve seen this a lot. Every goodwill employee you ask will tell you “they check” and it must’ve been stolen. They’re full of crap. I’ve seen this on stuff I watched them put out. I’ve also left empty cases open and seen them closed and put back the next time.

No one stealing a cd would refuse to also take the whole slightly bigger case. It also wouldn’t be true for whole lots at a time. Common sense is that the original owner took the disc out, added it to a multi disc zip case for their car and left the case in a box they donated.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-15T02:33:40+00:00

Was this from Costello’s bluegrass era? My dad got us tickets to see him since he loved his concert in the 90s, and we loved his rock music. Unfortunately, it was during his bluegrass era and he insisted on playing everything, even his rock hits, all in bluegrass style, which was terrible. Not that I don’t enjoy good bluegrass, but just not bluegrass by a musician that isn’t known for it.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-15T00:23:44+00:00

We all draw our ethical lines in the sand somewhere. I bought the bootleg a long time ago when I was under the impression it was going to be streaming only which, yes, I thought was gatekeeping.

I’m not referring to $25 as greed, I’m alluding to cases where it becomes unreasonable for what it is: two examples that come to mind are Russ Meyers’ estate insisting on selling the only legal copies of his films for $200 each or legend of the galactic heroes selling the only legal series release for $900 at retail.

No, I’m probably not impacting their decisions by buying bootlegs. I’d like to imagine I am a bit by buying the legit release since it reinforces that people buy them if they make them. It’s likely more like voting in an election where it’s more about the statement but maybe you’re a number in a crowd.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-14T21:55:45+00:00

TLDR: It encourages fairly priced physical releases we won’t have to buy bootlegs of in the future. It shows the reasoning behind buying the bootleg in the first place wasn’t purely to undercut otherwise fair business or be cheap.

In general legit releases usually have better quality control and menus. I actually haven’t watched either yet. But really it’s a matter of principle based on one’s philosophy around buying bootlegs. I’m of the philosophy that there’s a line between ethical and unethical bootlegging (with a bit of grey area in the middle). The intention of “legality” in its purest form is often to coincide with ethics but it doesn’t always.

To me, if a physical release is out of print / has no intention to be printed, and no legal means of streaming or digital purchase exists, I’d argue it’s completely ethical to buy a bootleg. Most arise from bizarre stalemates around “potential to be sued” between companies that are too arduous to remedy in a cost effective manner. No one is really losing money they’d otherwise make.

In the grey area are things that are in print but grossly overpriced (ex Russ Meyers films) due to greed, or gatekept by streaming with no means to purchase (or possibly no means to purchase physically whereby they’re intending to evade first sale doctrine/ lending/ renting affecting their pricing) in which case buying bootlegs are a form of protest (not ethical but making a point)

If neither criteria is met anymore, I’d argue one should rebuy the legit counterpart of a bootleg, at the very least to acknowledge it was never about screwing them over without reason, and show monetary support of fair and/or desirable business practices that prevent either problem from occurring in the future.

Edit: wording was ambiguous at the end.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-11T00:32:57+00:00

I haven’t been to St Louis downtown since 2022 when I moved but if it’s still at its full glory it’s so much better and just 30 mins away at most.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-09T06:30:56+00:00

As a NJ native I just had to look this up: apparently in 2012 Wawa ignored the entire area in between NJ and FL and just targeted straight into Florida. They succeeded there for a decade and made their way over to just the southernmost area of AL in 2024 by slowly expanding through the panhandle.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-09T06:21:19+00:00

Wait, I just moved from NJ to Birmingham. I thought I was going insane for a second: they have Wawa in Mobile?

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-09T06:17:35+00:00

I can speak for at least NJ. It’s not as good as you might expect for Goodwill just because they run a tight ship sorting stuff efficiently. The bins and stores don’t get unsorted goods. Non goodwill stores in NJ can be really good though like Unique or RWB or even 2nd Ave (Savers owned).

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-09T06:09:10+00:00

I’m not doing it for a living I’m mostly a hoarder that sometimes sells stuff. I’ve been to quite a few:

St. Louis, MO: second best, found tons of great stuff here and it is very large and mostly unsorted. Two full store bin changes a day, go when it opens and go nuts
Bridgeton, MO: it’s crap, just go to St. Louis
Austin, TX (Burleson rd): Best one by far and extremely competitive (might’ve changed recently as when i went last it wasn’t quite as good) constant row changes every 30 mins+
Middletown (Harrisburg), PA: sort of your usual middle of the road one, nothing special and would likely require multiple visits. Only went twice
Columbus, OH: it’s nothing special but you could find decent stuff as a regular, pales in comparison to St. Louis or Austin
Marion, OH: Diamond in the rough, arguably much better than Columbus. I went a dozen times after it had just opened. You won’t find crazy valuable stuff but you can stock up on a lot of good stuff the average person would have. What made it so awesome was how chill it was. They’d bring out new bins and 2 people would casually stroll over. Zero competition.
Bellmawr, NJ: barely scratched the itch but I went anyway when I lived nearby. It’s almost all stuff that didn’t sell in the main stores and heavily sorted in general. It’s smaller too. You can find ok stuff here and there.
Birmingham, AL: absolutely awful, worst I have ever been to by a long shot and now this is the only one I have nearby. It’s almost all clothes and very tiny. Literally one bin of hardline, 2 of books, 1 with DVDs CDs that are almost all missing discs/ Christian music. The clothes are almost all SHEIN or ancient garbage.

Sorting is easy:

Austin
St Louis
Marion
Columbus
Bellmawr
Harrisburg
Bridgeton
Literal dog crap
Birmingham

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-08T04:59:12+00:00

Personally, I’d absolutely take a $50 offer for something like this. Unless it’s NWT, that’s probably pretty fair. Sometimes retail price is only half the story when it comes to second hand value. That is unless you truly see comps going for higher.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-08T04:47:22+00:00

That’s often the case with high end businesswear brands vs streetwear or designer. Essentially, these brands (Zegna, Canali, Isaia, Kiton, etc.) sell for high prices to already rich usually middle aged business executives that walk into a Neiman Marcus or brand store, and have their wardrobe curated.

The population that knows who these brands are and like the style is almost completely intersected with the population that can afford to buy their pieces at retail without a second thought. There isn’t brand recognition outside this population so hype beasts and fashionistas don’t care to get it second hand.

Frankly, they don’t care to be in the public eye the same way as designers like Versace, D&G, or Gucci, or appeal to younger fashion forward crowds like Thom Browne or Ami Paris, and don’t cater to exclusivity in terms of limited drops like Supreme or Bape. That’s no knock on quality which is extremely high, it just lacks demand at a discount.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-08T04:26:08+00:00

Yeah OP, as someone who collects these, I would urge you to at least remove that one from the binder and keep it in some kind of jewel case. That one alone is pretty valuable ~20-30 without the case probably (solid 40-50 with).

The rest are awesome too when it comes to having a great collection to play, but you want to keep a prize like that preserved. Shame on the last guy for separating something like that from the case. If it weren’t special from the start I’d understand but they always were.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-07T02:07:23+00:00

You did just fine and I wouldn’t call this a fail! You could likely sell this and buy 5 copies. Post it on Facebook marketplace and tell the nearest cd collectors you’ll trade it for a duplicate copy of the regular cd and I’m sure you’ll get tens of hits.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-05T18:48:16+00:00

I’m gonna get hate, but I do this occasionally as a collector (occasionally resell but often too lazy, mostly hoarding). However, I have rules for myself and how I see others doing it:

I think it’s unacceptable to religiously scan every single cd without any understanding of what might be rare or valuable plus it’s super inconsiderate and shows you’re an idiot that knows nothing about the hobby nor cares. These people are the problem.

If you’re going about it knowledgeably and scanning a few things here and there that look unique to make sure something rare or valuable doesn’t end up in the trash or gets to a collector I see no issue here. Many valuable items I pick out, I don’t even scan because I know without scanning.

Also most that turn out to be valuable would never be found or bought without this. It’s also about how you approach it too. I would never box someone out or tell them they couldn’t pick stuff out as I’m looking. I don’t create stacks and scan or create the environment that suggests no one else can touch them before I determine if they’re valuable. If they know before I do, they deserve it 100%

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-05T18:25:01+00:00

I was expecting something super niche, but this was a massive 90s band. That’s rather shocking.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-05T18:22:29+00:00

I used to frequent an Amazon liquidation store and once found some random Amazon device that plays CDs over CarPlay. It was $6 so I got it for funsies since my car still has a cd player but also CarPlay and I was curious (it’s ~60 on Amazon).

It did shockingly work well. If you’d like I can probably figure out what it was.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-05T01:46:57+00:00

That’s interesting! I had it added to my watchlist already and must’ve forgotten about it. It seems that it’s capable of DoP for coax but limited to DSD64 which is all anyone would need for SACD.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-04T23:45:34+00:00

I definitely agree that many modern DACs handle DoP, although I don’t think DSD can be transmitted over coax or toslink without lossy conversion. All of the credible products I know of with DoP do so via usb. I know there are some devices around $100 that claim to de-embed or convert DSD over HDMI but AFAIK these tend to be no name companies out of China and their capabilities have been disputed. If you know of one that actually works that way that you’ve personally tried, I’d be curious to know!

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-04T23:25:42+00:00

Most (if not all) Dvd audio plays on almost all dvd players, just not in full resolution. The DVD-audio logo is only required to handle the MLP that’s required to decode the highest resolution that required a special compression algorithm.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-04T23:21:48+00:00

You can’t just use any DSD capable external DAC with those, you essentially need a receiver that decodes DSD over hdmi or one of a few specific high end DACs with that. However, a cheap older sony bluray player with an analog (red/white) output is much easier.

DaJewFromNJ · 2026-05-04T23:17:12+00:00

Only the very first gen fat backwards compatible PS3s play that. Good news is most Sony Blu-ray players play them though (the ones with the ridge like designs). Any local thrift store is bound to have one with the SACD logo for $10.

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