A bootleg is an illegal reproduction of an original work, more commonly movies and music at the current time. Bootlegged movies are created in one of two ways (not including the out-of-date act of copying VHS tapes). The first is when a person with a camcorder actually sits in the back of a movie theater and records the entire movie so that it may be reproduced and sold on the black market. The second is when DVD movie encryptions are broken with questionable software and then copied or converted into various formats that make them playable in just about any program and region-free. CDs are simply copied or ripped (encoded) into files that portable music devices are able to play.

Whereas in the past, most of these bootlegs were sold for dirt cheap in back alleys and through the Internet, they are now available for free on torrent and p2p sites.

The popularity of bootlegs is hurting the music and film industry in a dramatic way, cutting profits, salaries, and even jobs. The number of DVD and CD sales has dropped dramatically in the past few years and appears to be on a steady decline. At the same time, torrent sites and free download sites continue to flourish and multiply.

Many countries are not taking these startling figures of increased illegal production of bootlegs and decreased demand for legit products very well at all. The United States, in particular, is going all out to shut down as many of these bootleg-friendly sites as is possible. Some Internet service providers are cutting off customers that download illegal bootlegs and refusing them connections.

Considering the often diminished quality of bootlegs, and the combined efforts of the music and film industry, as well as the government, to put an end to this underworld of copying, it may be only a short matter of time before this situation is permanently resolved.