Ripping DVDs Now Legal?

[Steven Gonzales]

All ripping is not legal. Only for educational use, documentary filmmaking and noncommercial videos for the purpose of criticism or comment.

The Librarian of Congress, under the Digitial Millenium Copyright Act, declares exemptions every 3 years. Here is the exemption for taking information from copy protected DVDs:

“(1) Motion pictures on DVDs that are lawfully made and acquired and that are protected by the Content Scrambling System when circumvention is accomplished solely in order to accomplish the incorporation of short portions of motion pictures into new works for the purpose of criticism or comment, and where the person engaging in circumvention believes and has reasonable grounds for believing that circumvention is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the use in the following instances:

(i) Educational uses by college and university professors and by college and university film and media studies students;
(ii) Documentary filmmaking;
(iii) Noncommercial videos.”

https://www.copyright.gov/1201/

[Rob Grauert]

Right, that’s what i meant. But my point was, won’t this lead to software that can get past the copy protection? So the average consumer will now be able to rip a DVD from Blockbuster or Netflix. Not that I personally do that. I’m just saying…

Rob Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com
command-r.tumblr.com

[Nate Stephens]

As long as you are going to use it for educational purposes Professor 😉

FCP, Mac Pro, Mac Book Pro, HPX500, HVX200, Betacam, Dvcam
Write for the Edit, Shoot for the Edit, Edit…..KISS Principle

[Dave Johnson]

I don’t understand how this new development differs from the “Fair Use” clause that has always been part of copyright law … the part that allows use of copyrighted materials for educational and other limited purposes … could someone clarify that?

[Jason Myres]

[Rob Grauert] “won’t this lead to software that can get past the copy protection?”

Isn’t there a lot of software already out there? Not that I personally do it. Just sayin…

JM

[Rob Grauert]

“Isn’t there a lot of software already out there? Not that I personally do it. Just sayin…”

Not that I know of. When I was still in school, we were doing a group project – a talk show in the studio. I tried to rip content from DVDs so guests could talk about them during our “show” but I couldn’t rip ’em. Not with MPEG Streamclip or Handbrake or DVDxDV.

Rob Grauert, Jr.
http://www.robgrauert.com
command-r.tumblr.com

[Andrew Kimery]

There are a number of programs that by-pass DVD encryption. A program called Fair Mount is one I have used, for example.

Dave,
The legal hang up has been that the DMCA makes it illegal to break/bypass/circumevent copy protection. So while Fair Use okay’s one to use the footage under certain conditions there was no legal way to get the footage off the DVD. Not to get on a diatribe here, but the DMCA was the way industry lobbyists did an end run around various copyright laws and rulings.

3.2GHz 8-core, FCP 6.0.4, 10.5.5
Blackmagic Multibridge Eclipse (6.8.1)

[Dave Johnson]

Andrew, Thank you very much for clarifying that … you explained it well and I get it now.