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Important DWW information: (date: September 1998)
Don't panic! Your video is certainly NOT a duplicate if you bought it from DWW directly! DWW has discovered a significant quantity of fake DWW videos on sale, especially in the USA and Japan. It's not a matter of a few dozen tapes, nor just a private matter involving a few people. DWW tapes are being illegally copied, labels and covers falsificated, and then distributed in hundreds. This is criminal fraud, which if allowed to continue, would close DWW forever, besides damaging all other genuine producers. All DWW videos are subject to copyright law throughout the world. Copyright infringement is in most countries a national or federal offence, and in the USA subject to Title 17, United States Code 501 and 506, and may be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The only corporation, company or individual in the USA licensed to re-sell some DWW videos of any kind is L.Scott Sales (also known as Famous Sports Videos). This arrangement is exclusive without exception. DWW's product appears legitimately under the L. Scott Sales banner with their own logo. If you buy DWW videos from any source other than DWW or L.Scott Sales you are probably buying fakes (or re-sold videos from dealers who are not licensed to sell them). INDEX
DWW LABELS (original and fake): DWW videos have a sticky paper label:
There are several other significant differences which DWW will not reveal at this time. Some of DWW's video covers are being faked too Below is a fake video cover:
This is not a DWW design. The text and photos for this cover have been stolen from DWW's internet site. They are different from the text and photos on the genuine DWW cover. This tape is DWW copyright and no mention is made of that on the fake tape or on the fake cover. The backgrounds of genuine DWW covers are never grey. The genuine DWW cover is not shown for security reasons, but it contains DWW's copyright notice and more pictures. When DWW played the fake tapes, the first words seen were "DWW presents". The DWW copyright notice had been removed from the start and end of this tape. The technical quality of the duplicated fake tape is rather poor, it's often very much yellow and green. The persons who duplicated and/or sold or re-sold this tape have committed many serious offences against Federal US Law and European Union laws. Because the fake tapes are duplicates, and of much lesser quality than genuine DWW originals, DWW is very unhappy to know that there are many people who are viewing DWW action in reduced technical quality. Therefore DWW would like to replace fake tapes with genuine DWW originals FREE of CHARGE for the many "buyers in good faith" who have been deceived by this fraud. DWW offers to replace free of charge any fake DWW video on the following FOUR conditions (but note: it's definitley NOT a fake tape if you bought it from DWW or from L.Scott Sales directly): 1) It's a real fake (!) - if you are not sure whether your tape is fake, look for a DWW copyright notice during the course of the tape itself. If in doubt, please make a copy of the label on the cassette itself and send us that copy before sending us a tape which may be genuine! 2) You are not a dealer but an individual purchaser. (Dealers and video retailers who distribute(d) fake tapes - probably in good faith - should contact DWW immediately to prevent police investigation and further troubles) 3) The fake video is in DWW's hands no later than 31 December 1998. 4) The video is accompanied without exception by two items of documentation: 1. the original bill of sale, such as an invoice or receipt of purchase price - such as cheque returned cancelled from your bank, copy of your credit card statement, or credit card voucher, from whoever sold it you, containing clearly the name and address of the corporation, company or individual who sold the video 2. a signed, dated declaration from yourself containing the words: "I, (your name), of (your address - we need this to send you your replacement tape!) declare that I am over 21 years of age and that I bought (details of the video, for example: catalogue number) in good faith on (date on which you bought it) from (name of person or corporation from whom you bought it) by (method by which you bought it, e.g. mail order) for the price of (price) which I paid by (cash / cheque / credit card (please name) / other method) and I am willing for this declaration to be used at any time as evidence in a court of law. Signed (your signature) and Date (the date you write this declaration) Certainly before we made this information available for everybody, we went through a very detailed (and rather expensive) investigation and we collected any evidence and witnesses one would need for winning any lawsuit in any part of this world. The fake videos were distributed by: Golden Girls; PO BOX 95; Victoria, IL 61485, USA and by Excalibur Video
Distributors; 2217 W.Lake street; ...quote yourself what kind of characters run these two companies .... If you ordered your video (in good faith) from one of those two sources, then the chance that you had received a fake DWW video is rather high.Actually, they deceived you too! Why? Because you definitely originally ordered the video(s) under the condition that you would receive an authentic, original DWW video, however, then you only received a bad fake dupe. However, we know for instance that Excalibur video distributed hundreds of such fake DWW videotapes to other distributors in USA who bought them in good faith (such as Lyons distributors and Curtis Dupont). However, both Lyons and Curtis Dupont helped us tremendously with our investigations and they definitely bought the videos in good faith. If you bought such fake videos from other sources than the ones above, then our offer for exchange is certainly still valid as long as we will receive the fake tapes and declaration of purchase as being mentioned above. There are certainly also more video stores in USA and probably more retailers who received those fake tapes (in good faith) from one of the above sources. However, if you would see one of those fake tapes in any video stores, please tell it to the owner of the store and please also advise us about where you saw them. This would be helpful. We know that there are hundreds if not thousands of fake tapes in circulation. We also know that our exchange offer will demand a lot of financial support from DWW to cover the costs. However, the costs to DWW of this exchange program will be charged on to the illegal distributors. In addition to your replacement tape we will give you a $ 10 voucher for future orders from DWW direct. Also, the replacement tape can be a different videonumber than the fake you'd send us (if you like). This should cover the costs of your postage in sending the tapes to DWW. DWW will send all free of charge replacement tapes by non-priority surface mail except you will pay the difference to airmail ($ 20) or except if you might want to order another DWW tape at the same time including a different handling charge than for surface mail. If you are a USA resident, please send all fake tapes and documentation ONLY to our USA-PO box: DWW, PO box 13024, Coyote, CA 95013, USA People living outside the USA should send their fake tapes and documentation for replacement to: DWW, Hannovergasse 25, A-1200 Vienna, Austria DWW thanks its honest and helpful customers and dealers for their support in this difficult matter. We just hope - now as you know the situation, that in future nobody will buy any more DWW tapes from those two illegal sources (Golden Girls and Excalibur) and that you will inform us immediately if you will find any DWW tapes circulating with those fake labels (or within the fake covers). Nobody who read this may now further defend himself that he was a "buyer in good faith" if he ordered any DWW tapes from these two sources in future. It's a hard time for us now as we were not prepared to deal with such frauds and it was neither our intention to waste our time and energy with thieves who do their business with our tapes. Our future business policy is currently "thinking" in between two extremes: Either to flood the market with hundreds of new DWW tapes at once - we have them on stock - (but that would probably be bad and maybe mean the end for most smaller companies in this business) - or the other extreme: namely to stop everything for a while (that would be bad for the customers and for our fans). G.R.
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Tape piracy
