RSS Feeds: Copying the Uncopyable
I left one important step out of the last post, "How to Watch DVD, DivX or XviD Movies on a Netbook". You can't use the software mentioned to re-encode the DVD files into something else if you can't copy the DVD in the first place. While the movie (and TV) industry says copying DVDs is illegal, people have every right to an archived copy and you just can't make one without the right software to remove the copy protection during the copying process.
The Copy Protection
Developed in the 1990s and then reverse engineered later in the 1990s, the copy protection features were designed for both that purpose and to provide a reason for manufacturers to make compliant devices. In other words, it was a licensing scheme to make more money for the movie industry.
The movie industry followed the lead of the music industry, which already started getting a cut from the sales of blank CD media (and still does). They all claim that this "cut" makes up for the loss of sales due to music and movie piracy. If that's the case, why is the RIAA allowed to sue anyone at all — the industry has already been paid 10 times over for the same content due to these little "fees" tacked onto media sales.
I'm not here, however, to dictate what's right or wrong and I leave it entirely up to you if you want to exercise your rights to an archival copy (regardless of the format) of any movie you own.
The Software
Most of the software that used to work for 5 GB and 9 GB DVD movies still work as the originally did, with some exceptions. Since I rarely make copies nowadays, I have no idea which ones still work and which ones don't. I'll list the software and you need to go find out for yourself. At least one product will copy Blu-ray disks, but I don't know which one it is:
- DVD Decrypter
- AnyDVD
- DVD43
- Smartripper
- DVD Shrink
- DVDFabDecrypter
A friend of mine uses the last title on the list, so I'm assuming that's the one that does Blu-ray copies along with the other formats.
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