A few people involved in the bootleg industry back in the day. They'd buy up film prints of rare Asian movies that had US interest, transfer them to a master and then print them to VHS and DVD.

Those were then sold to consumers through places like Tower Records and Best Buy.

The people involved even went as far as partnering with a HUGE media company before the whole business died thanks to the internet.

I know they make hundreds of grand though, stealing movies, in about 5 years. And never got caught.

Feature length 16mm prints were not cheap, neither was the equipment required to make a good quality transfer.

Today about three minutes of the least expensive 16mm film (expired stock or never-the-same-color-twice stock) costs about $40. Then it costs another $40 to develop it. That would be $2400 for a 90 minute feature film, and only if you could find someone willing to touch copyrighted material.

It wasn't any less expensive then, and you usually had to "know a guy" who'd make a run after hours, etc...

A guy like Roddy McDowall had the money and connections, and maybe studio hounchos who'd appease him with "illegal" 16mm copies for his collection.

Exporting to South Africa was probably an inside job too, at a level far above the mail room clerks. There were plenty of racist assholes in Hollywood who disagreed with the export ban and probably took money under the table to send films that way.

Today's pirates have it easy.