Good DVD ripper?

[tubaguy9]

Is there possibly a good free DVD to Hard Drive thing out there? Is this really leagal? I'm wanting to put DVD's on my iPod.
Thanks!

[Dan Schultz]

Is there possibly a good free DVD to Hard Drive thing out there? Is this really leagal? I'm wanting to put DVD's on my iPod.
Thanks!

I saw on national news this evening that the DVD format is already heading for extinction.... FAST! ... in favor of formats that can be downloaded via the Internet.

[pulseczar]

www.doom9.org

That's a good place to start. I use DVD decrypter, and then reencode with either TMPGEnc or VirtualDub.

[SplatterTone]

Anyone knowing otherwise, please debunk this! (Please!)

I don't think we USA-ers are even supposed to have the decrypter program. Note that the web sites for getting it are not in the USA (and quite a few other countries). I know the author of one of the popular rippers stopped doing any further work on it maybe a couple years ago and turned it loose to cyberspace because of the legal hassles.

Maybe 3 years ago (just guessing, don't remember that well) a company that assembled some of the shareware programs on a CD and sold it like it was some great original product made enough money on it to pursue the "fair use" (I think it's called) argument quite a way through the courts. He eventually lost, and that was all she wrote. The big boys won.

[ZNC Dandy]

Just an ignorant question...why is it illegal to put DVD's that you own on your iPod or computer? Is the idea of personal property dead?

[Chuck(G)]

Just an ignorant question...why is it illegal to put DVD's that you own on your iPod or computer? Is the idea of personal property dead?

I think it all pretty much started with the "shrink wrap license" idea. By opening a DVD package, you agree to be limited by the terms in the license. In the case of most DVDs, your rights extend to playing the contents off the original--period.

DRM is getting to be a very big issue--the new Windows Vista has it firmly embedded.

You'd be amazed at what it's illegal to do with electronic media nowadays. For an example see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA

Note the "criminalizes" terms--yup, you can be convicted of a felony and thrown into the Federal Pen for violating copyright. None of the "recovery of damages by tort" stuff needed.

[SplatterTone]

Is the idea of personal property dead?

I think that is the basic argument behind "fair use". But, in the end, it comes down to The Golden Rule: The guy with the gold makes the rules. And a lot of gold got behind the rules to make you keep spending your money.

Back in the prime of the cassette tape, the music industry succeeded in convincing enough government legislators and courtroom judges that since X percent (pull some number out of the back end of your ***) of people who buy cassette tapes are doing it to make an illegal copy of music, a royalty should be added to cost of each cassette tape. So, when you bought a cassette to record a class lecture, you got to pay for the illegal copying you might do.

Then when CD recorders came out, if you bought a "consumer" CD recorder (rather than a much more expensive "professional" model), it would only record on "Audio CDRs" which (surprise!) have a royalty to the music industry built in to the price.

The following link seems to have relevant info and a link to more:
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/ ... lties4.htm

Enjoy your fleecing and HAVE A NICE DAY.

[pg]

I think that is the basic argument behind "fair use".

I think fair use is more about comments, criticism, and parody.

Is the idea of personal property dead?

Not really. You just need to understand what you really own. You own the disk (media) but not the content. You are licensed to use the content in certain ways (play it). What you're not licensed to do with the content is decrypt or copy it.

This is of course over simplified and I'm not an expert (nor do I fully agree with all the implications). But this is the easiest way for me to understand and explain it.

--paul;

[MartyNeilan]

Good DVD ripper?

[SplatterTone]

I think fair use is more about comments, criticism, and parody.

It could be the "fair use" is not the correct legal term I'm trying to think of that was originally applied to say owners have a right to make an archival or backup copy of something. In the good old days when software came on floppy disks, it was good common sense to make a backup copy. For example Finale 2.0 came on two floppies, and student price was $250. You can bet that, for $125 per disk, anyone in their right mind is going to make backups of those floppies.

Some vendors put errors -- laser holes or electronic glitches, for example -- on the disks to make it impossible to copy with normal computer hardware; but it was deemed legal for other vendors to make disk drive controller cards that made it possible to reproduce the disk. While it was legal for vendors to try to prevent you from making a copy, it was entirely legal for you to make a copy if you (or some other enterprising individual) could figure out how to do it. I'm thinking this was based on some extension of fair use; but maybe it was something else. Whatever the principle that was applied that gave you the right to do this in the past got whacked when the really big money decided they didn't like it. For example, nobody can legally (as far as I know) offer hardware that will copy a Playstation disc even though there are good, valid reasons to make a copy of a $50 disc that is going to be handed to some young kids to play.

I'm not sure if the legal dust has completely settled on this. But, for now, it seems that the boys with the gold are still making the rules.