Comment by tombert
6 hours ago
> if you have the DVD its legal to make a backup digital copy.
Is this actually true? I thought there was inherent illegality to cracking the DRM on DVDs.
Granted, I doubt anyone is going to come after you for making a backup of a legitimate copy, but I think strictly speaking it's still illegal.
I am also not a lawyer.
This was a big issue back in the DVDCSS days. The DMCA explicitly forbids bypassing protective measures. Doesn’t matter who owns the media, the copyright holder owns the content.
17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A)
Which was the beginning of the end for ownership vs purchasing a license. That thing you paid for isn’t yours.
Possibly in some countries...
But at least in the US, it is a DMCA violation.
DMCA gets a little weird; Basically unless you're distributing it is a civil penalty (which, I could be wrong but would mean you'd get a Jury trial, even assuming it ever came up) and I doubt you would ever run into legal issues so long as you were only backing up for personal use.
It's where you get into distribution that anyone starts to care, and it's when you do distribution on a large scale that criminal penalties come into play.
However there may be countries where possession of an 'illegal number' or 'DRM Breaking software' is considered legal for personal use.
I am not a lawyer, but yeah I think there seems to be like a distinction in the United States between copying a "protected DVD" versus an unprotected one.
It's still sort of confusing to me because would that mean then that if you are making a personal backup in the United States, would it technically be allowed if you pointed a video camera at your own TV screen?
Yeah as I said, I doubt they’re going to send the FBI after you if you’re just ripping for your own backups; I think they care a lot more about people putting it on ThePirateBay or something.
Yes, DMCA made the mere act of breaking DRM illegal, even if what you do with the media is legal.
I am also NAL, but it almost certainly is legal to make backups for personal use. Breaking the encryption is the usual legal hangup, though there is no real enforcement on this front and nobody is stopping you from using Handbrake or MakeMKV.
More importantly however, is the fact that there isn't a meaningful argument that making backups of physical media you own is ethically wrong.
Oh I don’t think it’s ethically wrong in the slightest. If you own the DVD you have given the copyright holder due compensation; I think it’s ethically fine to make a backup of media that you legally purchased.
I was just saying that I don’t think it’s actually legal to do so for a DVD since those usually have CSS encryption.