DVD Backup

AsSiMiLaTeD

I'm about to undergo the task of backing up my entire DVD collection. I've not been able to find a clear definition of the law as it pertains to DVD copying.

Ibviously copying a DVD that you don't own is illegal, that's a given.

What does the law have to say about me making backup copies of movies that i already own - is this illegal?

I'm researching programs that I can use, but need to find out if this is even legal before I buy 500 blank DVDs and start this...

michael_w

Yes it is legal as long as you own and posess both the original and the copy.

As for copying them I and many others use DVD Shrink and DVD Decrytper. They're both free and do a great job. You could probably spend a decent amount of money on a program to do it in less steps and make things less complicated but this way you get to customize things more and not paying for any software is cool.

Lemme know if you want some help using the programs or where to find them.

edit: I just chucked in a text version of an email I quickly wrote to someone in the same situation. It doesn't go into much detail but it should help you get started with the two programs.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Thanks for the info.

I'm already familiar with DVD Shrink as I've used it for other project before. I'll end up using that for quite a few of the backups I do, but for those that need a lot of compression, I'm going to go with a combination of DVD Rebuilder with CCE to get a true encoding package.

opus

I just started doing this lately and while shrink is great, on a majority of the newer movies you will need to use a different program to decrypt first. I have been using the free download of Fabdecrypter to break the movie and then use shrink to format. May not be the best way but it works for the computer challenged.

FYI. check out Cdcovers.cc for free downloads of dvd case covers. Just about anything you want. Way cool.:) kevin

Holydoc

michael_w wrote:

Yes it is legal as long as you own and posess both the original and the copy.

As for copying them I and many others use DVD Shrink and DVD Decrytper. They're both free and do a great job. You could probably spend a decent amount of money on a program to do it in less steps and make things less complicated but this way you get to customize things more and not paying for any software is cool.

Michael,

Are you a copyright infringement litigation lawyer? Are you giving your opinion or the fact? For instance I see no harm in backing up your library of DVD's. However my opinion will not be worth a crap if you are sitting in prison or paying heavy fines.

According to everything I have read, this is a very grey area. CNET posted this concerning copying DVD's:

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-3513_7-5128652.html

You be your own judge. There is very little chance that even if it was declared unlawful, that anyone would spend the money to convict you if you were not distributing your copies. However very little chance does not mean NO chance.

bobman1235

Holydoc wrote:

There is very little chance that even if it was declared unlawful, that anyone would spend the money to convict you if you were not distributing your copies. However very little chance does not mean NO chance.

Stranger things have happened. Whether it is legal or illegal right now (and the jury's still out on that) it WILL be illegal in the near future. I'd bet almost anything on it. The MPAA will have their way, and they do not want you to be able to rip or copy any DVD, whether for personal backup use or not. Fair use is a joke, and will be gone within five years, most likely sooner. The idea of owning any piece of music or movie is a thing of the past. You own one copy of it, and should that copy be destroyed, you own nothing.

michael_w

What I said wasn't an opinion. From everything I've read it's totally legal to own a burned copy of one of your own movies. Aparently the gray area is just about the legality of the process. Breaking the anti-copy protection built into some media is aparently illegal (according to the article?). It's kind of like trying to decriminalize weed, where it would then be legal to posess it but not grow it.

danger boy

what would be cool is if you backed up those DVD's onto a hard drive.. then just ran a movie off the HD whenever you wanted to watch it in the home theater. I guess it would be a media server right? How cool would that be?

heiney9

Remember most if not all commercial DVD's are on dual layer media. Most of the mass market DVD-R's on the market are single layer and only hold 1/2 the amount of data. The dual layer recordable media is coming down in price however. So when you use DVD shrink (which I recommend) you either have to reduce (compress) the information to fit all available information on a DVD-R or reauthor the DVD essentially editing out the parts you don't want.

If you are buying dual layer recordable media then you don't need to worry about compression or reauthoring the original DVD.

H9

PolkThug

It is NOT legal to make copies of DVD's, even if you own them.

AsSiMiLaTeD

So if it's not legal to make copies, I wonder how they can get away with selling all this software?

AsSiMiLaTeD

To all, I've very familiar with the available programs I can use to get the job done. Based on my research, I'll either be using DVD Shrink or a combo of DVDFab Decrypter and DVD Shrink for most of my copies, and a combination of DVDFab Decrypter, DVD Shrink, and DVD Rebuilder with CCE for movies that are gong to require more than 10 or 15% compression - depending on the actual bitrate.

StopherJJ1980

Polkmaniac wrote:

I'm about to undergo the task of backing up my entire DVD collection. I've not been able to find a clear definition of the law as it pertains to DVD copying.

Ibviously copying a DVD that you don't own is illegal, that's a given.

What does the law have to say about me making backup copies of movies that i already own - is this illegal?

I'm researching programs that I can use, but need to find out if this is even legal before I buy 500 blank DVDs and start this...

No ones gonna come busting down your door and ask to see all the DVD's you own. Dont worry about it, copy what you want. Downloading movies is another story, can get caught there if someone is watching.

TheReaper

Polkmaniac wrote:

So if it's not legal to make copies, I wonder how they can get away with selling all this software?

Slysoft and dvd region+css free come from Ireland an China (not illegal there). For dvd region+css free, I downloaded from god knows where, and then bought the key to unlock it, in the US.

what would be cool is if you backed up those DVD's onto a hard drive.. then just ran a movie off the HD whenever you wanted to watch it in the home theater.

It is cool, but takes a lot of disk space at 4 - 8 gb per movie (at original resolution). I have several dvds on my hard drive, but it would take a couple of terabytes to hold my whole collection (I currently only have 750gb).

bobman1235

Polkmaniac wrote:

So if it's not legal to make copies, I wonder how they can get away with selling all this software?

Under the pretense that it's only for non-copy protected DVDs.

It's like saying you can't sell file sharing software because sharing copyrighted material is illegal. All they have to say is that it's not for copyrighted material, and it's fine.

Willow

FWIW, I use dvdcopy, easy as 123

heiney9

PolkThug wrote:

It is NOT legal to make copies of DVD's, even if you own them.

Not true. If it's for your own use and you own the original it's not a problem, or illegal. If that were the case then when we rip music files to store on our portable players that would be illegal also. Also one can make back-up copies of software, which is in no way illegal. Once you purchase something you can manage the info any way you want as long as you don't sell copies, charge to watch/listen to it, or make copies available to others. That is the intent of the copyright law.

H9

polrbehr

You may also want to try DVD XCopy Express by 3-2-1 Studios, a simple program that does what it's supposed to. If you have a DVD player and a DVD burner in your computer, you can put the original in the player, put a blank in the burner, and set it in motion. The copy will pop out when it's done. One caveat: you won't be able to copy the interactive menus found at the beginning of most DVDs.
BTW, it will work on a burner-only setup as well; you just have to insert a blank when prompted.

Willow

polrbehr wrote:

You may also want to try DVD XCopy Express by 3-2-1 Studios, a simple program that does what it's supposed to. If you have a DVD player and a DVD burner in your computer, you can put the original in the player, put a blank in the burner, and set it in motion. The copy will pop out when it's done. One caveat: you won't be able to copy the interactive menus found at the beginning of most DVDs.
BTW, it will work on a burner-only setup as well; you just have to insert a blank when prompted.

Dvd copy makes exact copies of what you have, menus and all

polrbehr

Cool - who makes it and where do you get it???

AsSiMiLaTeD

bobman1235 wrote:

Under the pretense that it's only for non-copy protected DVDs.

It's like saying you can't sell file sharing software because sharing copyrighted material is illegal. All they have to say is that it's not for copyrighted material, and it's fine.

Understood, but I'm talking specifically about the packages like DVDFab and ANYDVD whose sole purpose is to beat copyright protection...

Demiurge

I wouldn't worry to much about the legality of copying DVDs you own. You're not doing anything unethical when copying DVDs you own. That law would have a hard time holding up in court....which it will most likely never come to.

jeremie

who really cares to be honest, go to blockbuster or McD's and rent some movies and burn them.

bobman1235

jeremie wrote:

who really cares to be honest, go to blockbuster or McD's and rent some movies and burn them.

Wow, how silly we all were to discuss the legality of reasonable things when the braintrust out there has such insight for us. Any more gems you want ot impart on us?

Willow

Willow wrote:

FWIW, I use dvdcopy, easy as 123

I checked last night and it's AnyDVD, sorry about that.

PolkThug

heiney9 wrote:

Not true. If it's for your own use and you own the original it's not a problem, or illegal. If that were the case then when we rip music files to store on our portable players that would be illegal also. Also one can make back-up copies of software, which is in no way illegal. Once you purchase something you can manage the info any way you want as long as you don't sell copies, charge to watch/listen to it, or make copies available to others. That is the intent of the copyright law.
H9

You're right about the music and software backup, there are specific provisions about that. You're wrong about making copies of movies. To this day it is still copyright infringement to make a copy of a copyrighted movie.

If you still think you are right, please quote the law that states you can make a copy of a copyrighted movie without any permission.

bpadget

I'm still trying to figure out if it makes sense to spend time and energy backing up a dvd collection. How many original dvds actually fail?

heiney9

PolkThug wrote:

You're right about the music and software backup, there are specific provisions about that. You're wrong about making copies of movies. To this day it is still copyright infringement to make a copy of a copyrighted movie.

If you still think you are right, please quote the law that states you can make a copy of a copyrighted movie without any permission.

I'm not trying to argue. If it's for your own personal use and you are the purchaser you can do what you want. How is a movie any different than music or literature? Where is the specific law that says you can't make a copy of a movie for your own personal use? Also, where are the specific provisions written for music? This question has already been dealt with during the advent of the VCR. Technically then you can't tape your favorite TV program to watch at a later date then, because of copywrite law and if you can; why doesn't the same apply to a movie you actually purchased? Software is a bit different as they were thinking ahead on that issue of catastrophic failure and having a back-up.

I guess what I'm getting at is how can it make sense for music, software and literature, but not for movies? Copywritten material is copywritten not matter what the content or intended use (reading, listening, watching) is. The spirit of the copywrite laws is to stop one person (not the owner of the material) from either profiting or making the material available to others without compensating the originator of said material.

How do rental places get around this then? They are making a profit by renting the same movies (they paid for once) over and over and over. No extra compensation is going to the originator of the material. How come we can rent materials (written, audio and video) from the library? They make said information available to the masses without any compensation to the originator of the material other than the original purchase.

H9

heiney9

It all comes down to your interpretation of the Fair Use provision found in copyright law. You can twist it anyway you want, but all recent provisions were added (Digital Millennium Act, Family Entertainment & Copyright act among others) to stop pirating of copywritten material.

My personal interpretation of the Fair Use provision is that you can resonably make a copy which you purchased as a back-up or for other personal use so long as you don't sell the copy, charge to view copy or make copies for others to use. If that's wrong, show me?

H9

P.s. In my earlier post I was being facetious about libraries to make a point. They have special provisions under copyright law to have and disseminate copywritten material.

bobman1235

heiney9 wrote:

I'm not trying to argue. If it's for your own personal use and you are the purchaser you can do what you want. How is a movie any different than music or literature? Where is the specific law that says you can't make a copy of a movie for your own personal use? Also, where are the specific provisions written for music? This question has already been dealt with during the advent of the VCR. Technically then you can't tape your favorite TV program to watch at a later date then, because of copywrite law and if you can; why doesn't the same apply to a movie you actually purchased? Software is a bit different as they were thinking ahead on that issue of catastrophic failure and having a back-up.

I guess what I'm getting at is how can it make sense for music, software and literature, but not for movies? Copywritten material is copywritten not matter what the content or intended use (reading, listening, watching) is. The spirit of the copywrite laws is to stop one person (not the owner of the material) from either profiting or making the material available to others without compensating the originator of said material.

How do rental places get around this then? They are making a profit by renting the same movies (they paid for once) over and over and over. No extra compensation is going to the originator of the material. How come we can rent materials (written, audio and video) from the library? They make said information available to the masses without any compensation to the originator of the material other than the original purchase.

H9

A few quick points :
1. Rental places DO pay more for videos (somehting like 100 bucks) that they rent out. Also, they are licensed to do so. i think it's obvious that you, a private citezen with no such license, could not rent out your movie collection for a profit.
2. It doesn't make sense. No one's arguing that it makes SENSE that you can't copy your own DVDs but you CAN copy your own music. We're just arguing that it's TRUE. Laws don't have to be logical, believe me. :rolleyes:
3. It's copyRIGHT, not copyWRITE. As in your RIGHTS. (just nitpicking on that one).

EDIT I missed your next post and the PS, so ignore point one about the video rental places.

PolkThug

Your interpretation and the law are two separate things. We can interpret anything, however we want. There are no laws, Acts or judicial declarations that make it OK to copy a copyrighted DVD without permission. So, to reiterate, it is illegal to make copies of copyrighted material, UNLESS there are legal provisions.

As mentioned above, there are documented provisions for other kinds of material.

For example, for TV broadcasts -
1984 Sony Corp v Universal Studios, Inc
-cliff notes: declares broadcast can be recorded and watched at a later time, then the recording should be erased as to not build a library of copyrighted material.