Chinese Import DVDs of American TV Shows -- legal?

Factual Questions
1

Searching on Ebay I came across a couple of vendors selling imported Chinese DVDs of popular American TV shows for very low prices (example ). As best I can make out, they claim that the DVDs have English and Chinese text on the cover box and DVD itself, and optional Chinese subtitles, but otherwise are exactly the same as their American equivalents.

Does anyone have any experience with these DVDs? Are these legal, or bootlegs? I thought that Ebay was pretty vigilant about keeping bootleg stuff off their site (just try searching for MP3s on there), so I’m thinking that they may just be legal. How about the quality – anyone know?? A google search indicated that they might be taped off of Chinese TV, which would not be good.

2

Can’t speak to whether your DVDs are legal or not, but I do know from personal experience that eBay does have bootleg stuff available; I got burned once when I inadvertently bought a piece of pirated game software, assuming that if it was on eBay, it must be kosher.

Which it wasn’t.

So after I received it, and recognized it for what it was, I e-mailed eBay (they’ve got a “Report This” form just for that), and they pulled the item, along with about a dozen other similar items (same title), all from the US (they didn’t pull the UK sellers).

So, just because it’s listed on eBay doesn’t automatically mean it’s kosher.