Well, no, it just means it was substandard. The DVD itself can be poorly written, and might not play properly. Box sets might be missing items.
There was no indication in the article that they were selling the very latest episodes.

Do you mean, when there is a demand for cheaper product? There was no indication that these DVDs weren't available anywhere else. But most likely they were cheaper than the product that is available in the store.

You are right, we can only speculate what a world without copyright would be like. But I think it would be a fairly boring place. I enjoy watch movies that were made on a $100 million dollar budget. They tend to be better than movies made on a $10,000 budget. I find it hard to believe that anyone would spend $100 million dollars making a movie in a world without copyrights. I find it hard to believe people would spend significant time and effort generating content in a world without copyright.
It seems like some people believe nothing will drastically change if we had no copyright, except that they can then freely download the music they want, and the movies they want. And that is just not going to happen.
The fact is, people are greedy. They want something, someone else generated, and they want it for free.

How does selling counterfeit goods hurt the economy? I'm sure there are lots of reasons, and probably tons of research and studies done over the years. But a few things that spring to mind. Typically counterfeit items are of low quality. The customer is purchasing something of a lower quality than they probably expect, and probably with no recourse. Sometimes the customer might expect that, but not always. Sometimes the product isn't made following the standards the real item is made, exposing the customer to health and safety issues. The original creator loses out on potential sales, possibly making it more difficult to improve on the product.
And you said it yourself, they were probably dodging the VAT, so the government loses some money as well.

Is it ok to sell counterfeit clothes and purses and watches? Ignoring the "IP" issue, selling a counterfeit item as an original is fraud. These guys weren't selling these items as "copies."
As far as your loss of control over your private property, you know if you go down to the store and purchase a DVD, you are free to sell it to someone else.
But you want to claim the bits now belong to you, and you have the right to copy them and sell them to someone else (and stopping you is somehow censorship). Well the person who created the item, had an agreement with society. He would create the item, if you let him own the copyright for a few years. If you don't honor that agreement, people might stop creating things. If you don't support copyright, then you don't support content creators. You know, the people creating the content that you WANT.

If it was me being shot... I would think, "WAY cool, what app is this and where can I get it?"

We used to bring dart guns to school. I made a special double barreled one, still got it around here someplace.

Actually WE do (we being everyone but the idiotic administrator.) The answer is NEVER.

squish squish

Why. why do you automatically think that maybe this represents intention? Have you ever seen people throw darts at pictures of their bosses? Is your first thought "I better find out if this represents novelty of intention?"

Look at what? When I was a kid we used to run around and shoot each other with rubber band guns and dart guns. Shoot I used to run a game of "assassin" in high school. Should we be investigated? No, we were just kids. Based on the story in the article, this kid did NOTHING to warrant a second thought (other than perhaps "hey, is there a problem and do you need help."

TFA: "arrested for terrorizing and interference of the operation of a school."
He didn't terrorize anyone. And I'm not sure how he interfered with the operation of the school. The article doesn't indicate this, but my guess is, he didn't actually interfere with the operation of the school.

Uhm ok... No ACTUAL weapons were used in the making of this story. So what does the fact it is easier for kids to illegally obtain them have to do with anything? Because the kid MIGHT get a weapon? That isn't a good enough reason to arrest him. So really the "right to bear arms" "crap" has nothing to do with this story.

There seems to be a market for quality recordings http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/09/11/219727031/what-does-a-song-that-costs-5-sound-like

FTS: "the monster trucks of the DVR world"
But the title is "Monster Truck of Tivos"
Why? Why do we have to use Tivo as a synonym for DVR, can't we just say DVR?

There are better ways to study traffic patters, than to look for only SOME of the vehicles. Like you know maybe studying ALL the vehicles, like pretty much any other metropolis does.