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WORLD  Pirate Alert BY NRSIMHANANDA DASA  USA, Feb 11 (VNN) — Dear Devotees,The pirates are anxious to take your laksmi for bootlegged DVD's of Srila Prabhupada, but you won't be getting what you expected. First, you'll be purchasing the bad karma that goes along with acquisition of stolen goods. Secondly, no one has the masters of the material except ITV in Los Angeles. The DVD's currently being offered are reproduced from VHS tapes of substandard quality. Moreover, DVD has substantial compatibility problems. Unless high quality blanks are used, cheap media is notorious for not being able to play on many set-top boxes and computers. Third, DVD encoding from a composite video signal to MPEG 2 requires a high-end board to produce decent results - and composite video is the least quality source. Digital video is the standard. ITV has been working on digitizing and improving its masters for transfer to DVD, but the process won't be complete until the end of this year. Meanwhile, the pirates suck vital funds away from our legitimate efforts to provide quality productions to the Vaisnava community. The pirates did not acquire the footage, edit it with all the work that entails, nor are they saddled with the costs of preserving it. They just steal it by cheaply copying it and making a profit from selling it illegally. And where does that money go? God knows. Certainly not into developing new programs from the materials. Please, for your sake and ours, do not support these theives: Madhuvisa, Janava Nitai, Gargamuni/ Brahmananda. In fact, become pro-active and preach against such nefarious nonsense. Srila Prabhupada was very protective of the copyrights of his books, and he told Yadubara to make profit from selling his films so that he could finance more of them. Those who think that Srila Prabhupada is pleased by their scandalous, immoral behavior are certainly in illusion and are offending aspiring Vaisnavas who have worked diligently to produce these priceless materials. Thank you. Your servant, Nrsimhananda dasa Authorized distributors include: Isvara dasa, Bal Krsna dasa, Priyavrata dasa, Visnu Murti dasa, Sraddhavan dasa, Krsna.com, Art & Culture. ITV is a non-profit 5013(C) corporation. The corporation owns the copyrights; not any individual. When I die, if I am still the director of ITV, the corporation will continue. Unfortunately, though there are no salaries, expense accounts, etc., ITV has been robbed of any significant funds by the devotees who spend their laksmi on purloined goods marketed by the bootleggers. All the piraters have been requested to cease and desist, but none of them have agreed to abide by the commonly respected created rights of others. Your servant, Nrsimhananda dasa Director, ITV Contact VNN about this story  Send this story to a friend
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