13 replies to this topic

[jhd]

Has anyone ever encountered pirated/burned/copied games for sale at a thrift shop?

At one store, several years ago, I once saw two obviously copied PlayStation games. They had crudely printed case inserts, edited to remove the PlayStation logo, and the disks were also printed with colour labels. One was a sports game (Baseball, I think) and the other a racing game.

I once accidently bought a copied PS 2 game at a flea market; the packaging was so authentic looking that I did not realise it was a copy until i tried to play it.

More recently, another thrift shop had a battered orginal PlayStation console, with a CDR still in the drive. The disk was labeled as part of a multi-disk Final Fantasy game.

I also found a Famicom cartridge once, SMB 3, but I'm not sure if that qualifies as a pirated/copied game.

Obviously, we collectors know that owning, much less selling, this stuff is illegal, but thrift shop employees are not experts.

[Seob]

I guess more then half the disks i see at secondhand stores in the Netherlands are burned disks. I also don't get it why they don't destroy those disks. Even if it hasn't got anything illegal on them they aren't worth anything.

[save2600]

If I saw pirated software at a thrift store, I'd definitely make them aware of it.

[FujiSkunk]

CD-Rs are common around here. The thrift store people either don't know any better, or just don't care, and throw in the recordables along with the rest of the discs. Fortunately most potential buyers know not to buy a CD-R with "FINAL FANTASEE" scribbled in marker across the label.

I have yet to see any pirated game discs with "professional" packaging, but once in a while a movie or TV show will turn up that's like that. My favorite was a box set of the first season of "24," with some of the funniest Engrish this side of the Pacific, and even a full list of the DivX files that had been used to create the DVDs. I bought that one just for the novelty.

On rare occasions I have found pirate multi-carts for older consoles, including one for the NES and two for the Game Boy Color. Those were neat finds, and I bought them all. Ironically for cartridge-based systems, the pirates are as collectible as the genuine articles, if not more so.

[MagitekAngel]

A couple of times I have seen scores of what appear to be bootleg Sega Genesis carts at the local Value Village. The cart labels looked cheap and "off" - ditto the labels on the clamshells.

[Jimmy Yakapucci]

I wound up buying a lot from the Goodwill auction site that was a modded PS1 and about a dozen discs. They had no problems doing a refund on it since it was bootleg. The only reason that I didn't keep it was that the games weren't that good. I have also seen bootleg DVDs at my local Goodwill.

[FireStar]

A few years ago, I found an 8 in 1 multicart for the Gameboy. There was also a copy of Mickey Mouse II there as well, (a Japan only game) so I'm guessing the donor got it in Japan, since the games in the multicart were in japanese as well. I'm surprised the Donkey kong and metroid II carts I found there at that time weren't the Japanese versions too.

[jferio]

I once saw a bunch of bootleg PS1 discs at a thrift, but didn't investigate too closely, in part because I knew I'd have to find a modded system or a mod chip.

I do have two bootleg Sega Genesis carts... a Japanese language copy of Romance of the Three Kingdoms 3, and Sega's Tetris with the branding removed from the program. Sadly, both are loose, but on the other hand, they're the only bootlegs I know I have.

[DemonoidTentacle]

I've never come across something as obvious as a burnt PSx disc, but I did find a pirate Game Boy multicart at a Cash Converters once.

[Reaperman]

The wife once came back home from the thrifts with a binder full of ~40 high quality Chinese(?) Saturn bootlegs. There are some real gems in there, including a few 'naughty' titles. I couldn't play them for the longest time (even with my 4-in-1) until another thrift find got me a $6 modded saturn1 with vcd card.

Edited by Reaperman, Thu Jan 5, 2012 9:06 AM.

[Hatta]

It is not illegal to own pirate games. Copyright restricts copying and distribution, not ownership.

[Bloodreign]

The only pirated crap I've ever run into was some 100 in 1 NES/FC games on a controller thing, and a Vii, the Chinese knockoff of the Wii. Needless to say I found the Vii to be useless junk to play.

[S1500]

I remember buying a few pirate xxx-in-1 Famicom carts while in Canada. Since I left something in my wallet I shouldn't have(was considered a blade), good 'ol TSA found the cartridges, but didn't confiscate them.

I have the Vii as well. Yeah, that was a disappointment.

[jhd]

S1500, on Fri Jan 6, 2012 9:11 AM, said:

I remember buying a few pirate xxx-in-1 Famicom carts while in Canada. Since I left something in my wallet I shouldn't have(was considered a blade), good 'ol TSA found the cartridges, but didn't confiscate them.

I don't think that the TSA would care about (or even recognize) pirated software.

Customs and Border Protection, on the other hand, are responsible for prohibiting the import of material that violates US trademarks and/or copyrights. That said, I'd be surprised if the average inspector would know what a pirate Famicom cart is/looks like.Now, if you had cases of them obviously desitned for resale, that may raise some suspicions.