knight rider online

since when is buying the episodes illegal? columbia house sold them? i bought the first season of CSI from best buy...they have the series up on ebay all the time. if it were illegal, i'm sure ebay would take them off.
so what's the deal with discontinuing my search for the series?

I'll help Neil out here, since I have the speel down to a science.

Offering the episodes is illegal, wanting to buy them is encouraging the copying.

Columbia House is officially licensed by Universal Studios to re-sell them.

The first season of CSI was officially released by the production company to be bought at Best Buy.

The entire series up on ebay are illegal copies, and watch carefully, several of them have been taken down, especially when ebay gets word of them, otherwise, they are policing all the other areas, and don't really have time to monitor them, but several times, several sellers have had their auctions and in some cases, their selling names pulled because of it. Just because it is on ebay doesn't mean it is totally legit.

Neil didn't discontinue your search for the series, there are several trading outlets out there, (Mike at teamknightrider.com used to host a trading list, that I remember.) that you are free to look up and use, but Neil just doesn't want the board to get in trouble for supporting illegal activity, since KRO has had visits from Universal.

Presently, the entire series is not available from official sources, but there are still many outlets open to you. Maybe you can find somebody willing to trade, which is why Neil only locked the thread, rather than deleting it completely, with the hopes that maybe you and somebody else can work it out. Maybe you can get somebody to get them off Sci-Fi for you if you don't have it. Don't have hard feelings, the search for your episodes has come to a complete end.

KI

Buying is illegal when your buying tapes from someone who has just recorded the episodes off the TV. It is piracy in this form. The studio never sees a cut of the transaction in this case.

The Columbia house tapes/DVDs and CSI episodes you mention are officially licenses by their respective studios. Everyone gets a cut in this case.

Neil had to discontinue your thread probably because it would draw too much unwanted attention to this community for the piracy purposes mentioned above.

The only official way as of now to get the episodes is through Columbia house like you said.

D'oh, KI, ya beat me to it!

There are actually a lot of subtle copyright laws which even the big studio lawyers can't figure out. You can buy a poster, which is a copyrighted image, and then resell it as used at a garage sale and there is nothing wrong with that. Similarly, if you wanted to sell your used videotapes at a garage sale, you'd be OK. You could legally re-sell your original Columbia House videotapes at a garage sale, over e-bay, or through an email contact. However, if you mail the videotape across state or country lines, a bunch of other laws MAY come into play, which is one of the reasons why e-bay really needs to protect themselves and play it extra safe.

Making copies of Columbia House tapes and reselling them can be a problem. Taping broadcasts and selling them can be a problem, which is what knightimmortal ecplained so well. Adding to what she said, I think the reason Neil closes down these discussion is not so much that there is never a legitimate way to get used Knight Rider tapes, but that the discussions have the potential to get into dangerous areas. As soon as someone says "I'm looking for tapes", it invites people to come back saying "I'll make copies I can sell to you." That would be bad. Better safe than sorry.

thank you so much for the informative replies. i had no idea about the "laws" of it. now it all makes sense.

knightimmortal wrote:I'll help Neil out here, since I have the speel down to a science...The first season of CSI....
KI

Ahem, firstly, ain't it "spiel" - to be pronounced in a German accent, and probably comes from spiele or something like that, and means 'play' as in "Ich spiele gern Fußball", meaning I like to play football (soccer to everyone else not in the UK).

And secondly, ain't CSI just a wickey series?

Would you like for me to pull all the spelling mistakes and problems from your posts? Last time I checked, I make one every once and a while, just like you and normal humans. I don't make entire posts out of them like some people. Or am I the only one who gets this honor, because it is me?

KI

Here you a question if one of you friends what to have a copies of knight rider and they buy the tapes to record it then can you recoded the show for them. Give them the recorded shows to them?

.....Is anyone supposed to understand that?

yeah i understood that.

what she/he was asking if someone had asked a friend to tape the eps for them as a favour and then give them the tapes?

According to our UK laws, we gotta buy a tv licence. This allows us to record anything broadcasted not to mention a certain tight channel that thinks they got the right to charge for their own channel, when you can't even turn it off, so you have to have it.

But I should imagine that the answer to nivek's question would be yes.

Skav

ok that is good to know but that does not help here in the USA

Ever heard the one about the Girl Scout Troop who were singing classic camp fire songs, when the big, bad lawyer comes along and places a lawsuit on them for public use of copyrighted song material?

It's pretty poor when the only episodes you are suppose to be able to own are the ones Universal allows you to own...and it's not even a complete set.

Woodstock had a set of rules that everyone could remember.

Woodstock II had a rule book that could crush bugs!

Maybe old Bill Shakespeare was right, huh

knightvision wrote:

Knight2000 wrote:

knightimmortal wrote:I'll help Neil out here, since I have the speel down to a science...The first season of CSI....
KI

Ahem, firstly, ain't it "spiel" -

If you want to be technical the word ain't is bad english, it is not a contraction and you should have said

"Ahem, firstly it is not 'spiel'"

If you want to point out others mistakes, be prepared to make sure you're using correct grammar first.

K.I.T.T. only used ain't when he was sick (reference Killer K.I.T.T.)

Lol! I actually used "ain't" deliberately....kinda like tongue-in-cheek.

Well perhaps we should all spend less time correcting each others grammar or spelling mistakes, and just have some good healthy conversation. None of us is perfect, and we are all guaranteed to slip up at some point.

Am I right in thinking that columbia are releasing the whole 4 series on dvd, but i heard you had to sign up for them monthly

They aren't exactly releasing the whole series yet, they are releasing them in 'spurts', you do have to sign up with them, though, and the DVD's are slightly expensive.

Universal Playback was also releasing them for the UK, but they are also doing the 'spurt' thing.

As of the present, there is no singular source for all of the episodes on Video or DVD.

KI

I no longer think UP are doing the "spurt" thing anymore. I just believe they've completely stopped producing KR VHS/dvd's.

I keep checking up at blackstar to see if there are any planned releases but unfortunately not.

Oh well, good things come to an end.

If they ever do release another, I'll be very very surprised!

Skav

I myself am looking for episode 40 (2 part I think) which starred Joanna Pettet. Since everything is illegal nowadays I guess I have no hopes of finding it

I am guessing that it all depends on where you are from. There are still stations that run Knight Rider around the globe, it's just a matter of using your knowledge on how to get the copy that you want. This and the other boards are not the end all of how to obtain KR episodes, it was just an easy way to try to get them.

KI

if you get scifi just record it when it comes on.