Remember the days before streaming services were a thing? Yep, basically that: as in people would burrow a rented copy from a friend who paid money to obtain a official copy on DVD from blockbuster then ripping the contents into those blank DVDs (the white ones) meaning they’ve pirated a copy for home use but it’s still a “torrent”. I remember watching a ripped copy of Finding Nemo (or other kids movies from that era) when I was younger.
The same with “lending” a purchased copy from a store a friend has proceeding to rip the DVD content onto a blank DVD having a copy. Then there are CAM’s (pirates using a video camera to record the film upon being shown in theaters) usually they do this around the debut (new releases in cinema) by sneaking a camcorder but the footage is shit (I remember back in 2010, I’ve seen Alice in Wonderland via CAM and it sucked due to bad resolution and audio).
I remember buying a VCD of some movie around 2000 and then 20 minutes in, I see the outline of someone getting up and walking out of the cinema the cam release was recorded in! I quit watching and from there on I only go for quality rips.
Got a few pirate VCDs in the late 90s to play on the Philips CD-i with FMV chip, like The Replacement Killers. Fortunately they were pretty good quality.