Legality of copying DVDs, etc.

[Jayce]

I've been asking around recently and I'm a little unsure of something.

Also, long story short I've been wanting to rent DVDs and just upload them to my hard drive, aka having an external hard drive JUST for DVD use. Then I weighed out my options and realized if I just copied them to DVDRs vs buying an external hard drive it would be much cheaper... Plus the fact that if that hard drive were to die, then what? All those movies, gone.

So, I started thinking about just buying a burner and copying them. I've heard mixed opinions about the legality of these things.

So, questions are as followed. What's legal? What isn't?

-Uploading DVDs to hard drive.

-Directly copying a rented/store bought DVD to another blank DVDR and keeping it for personal use only.

-Directly copying a rented/store bought DVD and handing that DVD over to my girlfriend for her keeping, being she is away at college and has no means of income to buy herself movies to watch when she has free time.

-Directly copying a rented/store bought DVD, standing outside wal mart luring people to my trunk to show them what I have available for purchase.

 

[Shumway]

Long story short it's illegal to copy them

 

[uzi9mm]

And who really follows laws like that anyways? Even if it is illegal, people will still continue to break the law.

 

[Jayce]

And who really follows laws like that anyways? Even if it is illegal, people will still continue to break the law.

Granted. To be honest, this won't stop me in any way shape or form. I just wanted to know "what" I was doing, more or less.

So ripping to HD isn't illegal, I'm assuming? Because if it were then all of these DVD ripper programs wouldn't be allowed, because a lot of them are advertised to "back up your DVDs on your hard drive."

I don't have a problem keeping them on my hard drive, however if I do it'll dictate a new harddrive which isn't going to happen, seeing as though DVDR's are worlds cheaper.

Meh... I would of preferred to just get an external hard drive loaded with them, then I can just take the hard drive to my girlfriend's college, plug it into her laptop, bam... everything is all good to go. Problem is, I'd want a backup... which dictates 2 external hard drives. Pffffffffffft, I can buy a dump truck load of DVDR's with that price and not have to worry about "losing" them.

Thanks for info.

 

[Nubius]

So ripping to HD isn't illegal, I'm assuming? Because if it were then all of these DVD ripper programs wouldn't be allowed, because a lot of them are advertised to "back up your DVDs on your hard drive."

Ehh keyword there 'backup YOUR DVDs'

a DVD from a rental store isn't 'yours' now is it.

It's for backing up DVDs you've bought, that's what ripping programs are 'technically' for.

 

[Harper]

If you own the DVD, then it's perfectly legal for you to copy them for back purposes.

If you do not own the DVD, then it's not legal for you to copy them.

And if you no longer own those orginal DVD, then you should destroy / delete your back ups.

Backing up is when you own the orginal DVD
Breakign Copyright is when you do not own the orginal DVD.

-Uploading DVDs to hard drive.

If you own the orginal, then it's leagal
If you don't own the original, then it's illegal

-Directly copying a rented/store bought DVD to another blank DVDR and keeping it for personal use only.

For personal use or not, that is illeagal

-Directly copying a rented/store bought DVD and handing that DVD over to my girlfriend for her keeping, being she is away at college and has no means of income to buy herself movies to watch when she has free time.

If your GF has problems affording things like a renting a movie for the video store, then your GF should think about filling up her free time by getting herself a job as appose to using her financally challaged status as an excuse to get pirated DVD.

-Directly copying a rented/store bought DVD, standing outside wal mart luring people to my trunk to show them what I have available for purchase.

That is very ILLEGAL. I have seen video store get shut down because of this. My last video store has the "Other New Releases" that was behind the counter.
Trust me, you do not want to do this.

 

[Jayce]

If your GF has problems affording things like a renting a movie for the video store, then your GF should think about filling up her free time by getting herself a job as appose to using her financally challaged status as an excuse to get pirated DVD.

Granted, I appreciate the information you gave me, but I took this as a very smart remark which I do not think highly of.

Let me explain something to you. My girlfriend is a musical education major. That means that she is studying how to be a teacher + how to play a series of classical instruments. I have her schedule here, she is in classrooms from 9 am until 6 pm every f*cking day of the week. At 6 she eats dinner, then goes to the practice room at 7. From then until midnight she is in the practice room learning how to play piano, flute, clarinet, etc. Two days a week she has an on-campus job where she works for 3 hours in the evening after her classes are done. The trick with on-campus jobs are, whatever "income" you make goes towards your tuition to help pay it off.

Please, if you didn't intend to be smart with that remark, PLEASE ignore what I'm about to say: WHERE IN HER SCHEDULE CAN SHE FIND TIME FOR A F*CKING JOB?! To prevent further comments, when she watches movies (hence the free time I spoke of) it's normally from 1-3 am.

In a nutshell, I just wanted tot see if there was a cheap alternative to getting movies up to her.


Thank you. Have a nice day.

That is very ILLEGAL. I have seen video store get shut down because of this. My last video store has the "Other New Releases" that was behind the counter.
Trust me, you do not want to do this.

By the way, the wal mart thing I spoke of was pure sarcasm.

 

[Jayce]

New question:

Is there anyway I can rip a DVD without shrinking it, and putting half of the movie on one side of a double sided DVDR, and the rest on another?

Example:

Movie on one side.

Credits, special features, etc on another. (assuming we're talking about a double sided, 4.7 per side DVDR).

Possible??

 

[Snump]

thats not true. You are not allowed to make backups of your personal DVDs. The EULA for DVD movies is different than software.

 

[Jayce]

thats not true. You are not allowed to make backups of your personal DVDs. The EULA for DVD movies is different than software.

K, let's get away from the legality issues and whatnot.

I don't care about what I'm not supposed to do, I care about what I am capable of.

With that being said, can I rip a DVD without shrinking it and putting the movie on one side of a double sided DVDR and the credits and special features on another?