a lot of people made copies of LPs and tapes, or recorded off the radio.. and those often got passed around at school. someone having two VCRs to make copies of movies wasn't nearly as common. we lived in small towns or out in the boonies, so there weren't any 'retailers' selling bootlegs or copies either.

i do remember downloading a few of those old cam releases back in the stone age of the internets (slow dialup). super low res and quality, often unstable video and/or audience noises. but hey, it was 'good enuf'.