Is burnig DvD and Vcd copies legal?

[Kyole]

Is burnig DvD and Vcd copies legal if you own the originals?

[Sefy]

According to the law, yes.
But there is also a law that allows you to create a backup for everything that you own, so it is basicly contradicting.

[pinoy2201]

it is not illeagal if you own the DVD or VCD because you have the rite to backup your belongings....but if is not yours then it is illeagl and if you sell it

[Sefy]

That is theoraticly correct, unfortunatly if you read the FBI warnning at the begining of the movie, you will notice you are forbiden to even extract a sample from the movie without written permission from the authors

[kinneera]

I'll start with the disclaimer that different jurisdictions have different positions, so this is for the US:

A number of rulings, mostly in the 80s, established that making copies of legally owned copyrighted materials is legal, as long as it is not for profit. This is what has come to be known as the fair use provision. Interestingly, under these guidelines, even giving copies to your friends is technically a gray area, since you didn't make any money off of the transaction.

Similarly, it has been established that broadcast material (radio/TV) is in the public domain and can be legally recorded. Thus, for example, recording movies off of TV is not illegal.

However, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act made it illegal to employ any method of circumventing the copyright protections (ie. encryption) on copyrighted works. The astute will observe that this does not contradict the fair use provision, but rather makes the method(s) of exercising that right illegal. That is why the law is so extremely controversial (widely ignored).

[Sefy]

Believe me, if you ever (god forbid) end up in court for it, it won't be ignored

[mijman]

"But, my lord, is that LEGAL?"
"I will MAKE it legal"
- Nute Gunray (I think) and Darth Siddious from The Phantom Menace

But seriously, If someone wants to copy a videocassette tape, encoded with macrovision, that they owned, and fed it into a capture card, like a studio DC10+ which naturally ignores macrovision, would that be considered an attempt to circumvent the macro protection? You aren't using any additional hardware to disable it. If you conversely, ran the feed THROUGH the same capture card, out to another VCR for recording without macro, would that be any differently interpreted by the courts?

"Ladies and gentlemen, of this SUPPOSED jury, THIS is Chewbacca..."

[Sefy]

Technicly you are breaking the law, not because you are going through the Macrovision, but because you are making another copy without the authorization of the author of your tape.

On the other hand, it is your tape, and you are allowed to have a backup of it.

Rather confusing huh ?

[Macros746]

Also confusing because sometimes these "efforts" on the part of the producers to make their product uncopyable actually make the orginally product faulty. Many of the copy protects used on gaming discs for instance make them unplayable on certain computers forceing legal owners to go online to find cracks just to make the product they have purchased playable. Not to mention the fact that the macrovision signal makes hooking up various devices a real headache. If I want to play a VHS tape from one room on a tv in another I really should be able to do it...don't you think?

[Sefy]

And what about the idiotic regioning on DVD ? we live in the 21st Century where you can buy something from just about any place in the world, and when you actually BUY the ORIGINAL DVD, you can't play it because it's not your region of the world! EVEN if you OWN and BOUGHT it, they won't let you enjoy it!

Personaly I think this whole DVD protection and regioning is a crap by the MPAA so they can make money on our backs, making the movies even more expensive, and not to mention the Players.