Legal issues - Copying DVD`s

[herbapou]

I have notice that the french legal copyright message of some of my bilangual DvD`s is:

French: "...toute reproduction, sauf pour l'usage privé du copiste, est interdite..."

Translation: "...any reproduction, except for the prive usage of the person making the copy, is forbiden..."

Strangly enough, the english copyright message of the same DVD doesnt mention this exception...!

So, according to the french copyright message, its legal to backup your DvD`s and according to the english copyright message, its not.

I live in Quebec, Canada and many of the french videos / DvD`s are translate in Europe..., so could that mean that the europe copyright laws are different than the north american ones???

And what about renting a DvD and ripping it? Does the french copyright message make it legal to do that?

Of course distibuting copies of SVCD (doesnt matter if your selling them or giving them to friends) is clearly illegal but I am wondering if making personnal copies for your personnal usage only is legal or not

[poopyhead]

well....dunno..but distrubuting SVCDs online for free doesn't seem to wrong to me....ppl are spending time to rip/encode and provide servers for downloads, yet they don't charge a thing...

[MOVIEGEEK]

In the US it's legal to make one copy for archiving(MIA vs.Sony)
There is a bill now in debate to take that from us,the MIA wants
to put copy-protection on all digital products. :cry:

[Keffie]

In Poland, where I live, it's absolutely legal to make a copy of any DVD, CD or software providing you own an original and you make a copy for your personal use.

[Greg12]

MIA vs. Sony can't be undone without the 27th amendment

[herbapou]

I did some research and...

[10] You buy a brand new DVD of your favorite movie. You then decide to make a backup copy of it by burning it into a CD-RW.

Sorry, this is illegal. Even though under US law, you are able to make a back up of any copyright material that you legally own, DVDs have copy protection built in, and under a US law called the DMCA (Digitial Millenium Copyright Act), it is illegal to crack the copy protection on DVDs. In order to make a backup copy of a DVD you would first have to download DVD copy protection cracking software and use it to disable the DVD's copy protection. So making the backup copy is legal, but cracking the copy protection is illegal. Does that make any sense to you? Lots of people think it is unfair, but right now that is the law. If you make a backup copy of a DVD, you will be breaking US law.

You can read the whole article at:

http://www.safetyed.org/help/pirate.html

I personnaly think they are going overboard with this... the more they tighen the screw, the more people are going to be motivated to hack them.

Are they going to refund me if my DvD get scrath and becomes useless... I dont think so. What I do is I backup my DVD`s and store them away and use my backups when I watch a movie. DVD`s are more fragile than videotapes, childrens can ruin them in notime.

And the prices tags on some DVD`s is just ridiculous. How can the videotape cost 10$ and the DVD 35$ for the SAME movie??? The only reason I have a DVD collection is because I buy pre-vision movies in video clubs for about 50% off the regular price of new ones. Since DVD`s dont loose quality no matter how much times you watch them, its a good idea. But sometimes its very hard to get a working copy, most of the DVD I buy are scratch and I have to return 50% of them for exchange because they dont work. Has I said, DVD`s are very fragile.

EDIT: And there is another reason I backup my DVD`s. When I back them up, I convert all the 2.35:1 movies into 1.85:1 because the black borders on 2.35:1 are too big on my 4:3 TV. If I zoom the movie with the DVD player, then it gets full screen and now I loose too much of the image. Converting them to 1.85:1 is just perfect for me

[poopyhead]

And the prices tags on some DVD`s is just ridiculous. How can the videotape cost 10$ and the DVD 35$ for the SAME movie??? The only reason I have a DVD collection is because I buy pre-vision movies in video clubs for about 50% off the regular price of new ones. Since DVD`s dont loose quality no matter how much times you watch them, its a good idea. But sometimes its very hard to get a working copy, most of the DVD I buy are scratch and I have to return 50% of them for exchange because they dont work. Has I said, DVD`s are very fragile.

i'm going to have to disagree with you on that. i'm actually kinda surprised that the costs of VHS and DVD are very similar....in fact, with all the features of the DVD, VHS should cost no more than $10...yet i've seen alot of VHS cost around $17 while the DVD costs around $25 (which i think is too much too)...but the point was that the price of VHS shouldn't be too similar to DVD because they don't put too much effort into it (lower quality, bigger and bulkier, and no extra features)

as for the DVD disc being fragile.....maybe for small kids that may be the case, but they're no more fragile than regular CD discs....if you paid alotta money for something, you should be more careful with it...there's no reason for you to "accidentally" scratch it considering you only take it out once in a while to watch it in dvd player and nothing else....(that's maybe like 1 min out in the open between the DVD case and player)

back to the first point, the movie and record industries r screwing themselves...with all the money they spent on legal issues they could use to lower their prices

of course there's always a good side to people ripping DVDs and audio CDs, people who rip alotta DVDs (myself included) also buy real DVDs and audio CDs. i actually bought the matrix after i ripped it because i thought the movie was great and i wanted to support them. so think of people ripping as a safeguard to the entertainment industry for not making any more crappy stuff. (if the movie sucks, i'm not gonna shell out $25 to buy it...may not even be worth it to rip.........if someone's a one-hit-wonder, i'm not gonna shell out $17 to buy an album with 1 good song and 10 crappy songs, i'll download the 1 good song they have and listen to it)