Who is seriously buying this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Snow-White-And-The-Seven-Dwarfs-1937-BLU-RAY-DVD-2-Disc-Set-/131717712266?epid=1631049176&hash=item1eaafcc98a:g:Q4QAAOSwa-dWsIY1
Apparently, they are similar in video quality to the US releases.
And since they are both Japanese and Korean budget releases, they may not be official but they are legal releases, since they are public domain in Japan and South Korea probably because of archaic copyright laws.
They updated them some time ago but it was too late to prevent some of the Disney films from going public domain.
And apparently, some of these DVDs have also been spotted in the Philippines in some Japanese surplus stores there so maybe the same could be said for the Philippines.
Which means any company can make their own release of the public domain Disney films (101 Dalmatians and everything before that) as long as they don’t use the Disney logo.
Walt Disney Studios Philippines, Walt Disney Studios South Korea and Walt Disney Studios Japan are all still allowed to use the Disney logo for obvious reasons, and they are usually the superior versions because they come from Disney themselves and also because they have bonus features.
And speaking of the Philippines, they apparently don’t have this Disney Vault complication that most other countries have. Which means all of the current releases are on-print since 2014, and even movies that were once in the vault are brought out permanently. So they don’t have to deal with all of the Disney Vault shenanigans which most of us have to deal.
And all of the current releases are also official.
The trade-off? Their releases are downgraded by being one-disc only for the movies which were originally two-disc sets.
This isn’t as bad as those which were only one-disc but it can get bad for many movies which are two-disc sets.
Also, they make the Blu-rays rarer over there and you really have to hunt for them.
They also exclude the original theatrical audio mix for any of their releases, but apparently, Disney also does it for other countries except for the US and sometimes Canada.
At least, that is what I saw when I was in vacation in the Philippines.
More info on these releases:
http://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=250138
And info about international copyright laws:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_South_Korea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_Philippines