this post was submitted on 01 Aug 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ

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How common was video rental piracy during the 90s? (nord.pub)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by Ironfox@nord.pub to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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This was during an era where VHS was standard and DVD's were just brand new at the time (before streaming sites existed). Chains like Blockbuster were booming back then with people renting movies or even TV shows for a fee but have to return them by an expected date, what happens is that in order to "keep" a copy, people would use a PC with disc burning software to burn the contents from that DVD onto a blank one.

Know those blank white DVDs? Basically those were used on storing a "pirated" disc for themselves before returning the rented copy back at the video rental store. When I was a kid, I remember encountering what clearly a pirated copy of The Prince of Egypt (so who ever pirated it kept the rented copy) since the disc art is crappy & low quality (it's been printed then glued onto a blank DVD used for copying upon peeling it off).

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[–] DFX4509B@lemmy.wtf 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Well, it would've been a lot harder for one; you would've needed two VCRs and an external TBC between the two decks to bypass Macrovision on pre-recorded tapes.

You also would've needed to fast-forward past the ads on the pre-recorded tape on deck A, and start deck B recording a few seconds before deck A, so your pirated tape would have a few seconds of dead air before the content starts.

Also, when you make a copy of a copy of an analog format, your pirated copy would be degraded vs. the original, so you'd inevitably have a lower-quality copy as a result.

Basically, VHS piracy was definitely a thing, but A) it would've been harder than just ripping a DVD and B) you'd have a worse copy due to the generational degradation of analog formats, and that generational degradation would've been compounded onto what would've surely been a well-worn pre-recorded tape if it was a rental.