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Posted on: July 9, 2009 5:50 PM, by Greg Laden
This is illegal. Do not do this in the US. Or, do it only for CD's that you totally own. Like, you are the artist formerly known as Prince and you are going to rip your own DVD off of your own DVD. That is probably not legal either.
So, for those of you tuning in from Bora Bora:
And remember, Linux is not for everyone.
Arrrrrr....
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Comments
Actually, merely watching a DVD on a Linux machine is illegal in most circumstances. Even playing an MP3 falls into a gray area, unless you purchase codecs for media playback and a DVD player through the Ubuntu store from a couple of their partners.
Posted by: Dan J | July 9, 2009 6:32 PM
Damn the DMCA for giving corporate coercion of US citizens the force of law. As if handing the Cult of Scientology another legal cudgel wasn't egregious enough.
I'm reading True Names and the Opening of the Cyberspace Frontier right now, and contemplating this kind of thing evokes uncomfortable associations to Alan Wexelbat's "panopticon" doomsday scenario from his essay "How is the NII like a Prison?"
(*installs PGP module for thunderbird and turns on Tor*)
Posted by: jdac | July 9, 2009 6:57 PM
If you can't follow the law of the land you should move back to the country you came from.
Posted by: omar | July 9, 2009 8:12 PM
@omar #3
So, we should blindly follow the law, even if the law is egregiously unjust? We should just accept anything forced into law, even if it is wrong?
And what country does he come from? And why should he go back there? Something does not follow in your argument.
Posted by: ByteReader | July 9, 2009 9:19 PM
Posted by: Dan J | July 9, 2009 9:26 PM
Law is something that we can change and I think that lawyers should take care of some serious cases. He had some reason to move from his country and he can stay and try to do anything he can to stay here.
Posted by: Agencja Reklamowa | July 10, 2009 4:15 AM
"If you can't follow the law of the land you should move back to the country you came from."
Omar seems to be laboring under the delusion that literally everyone is an immigrant. Should we all move back to east Africa, since that's where we all ultimately came from?
Posted by: Ian | July 10, 2009 7:20 AM
I don't think that word means what you think it means. Wouldn't it be more appropriate to move back to the ocean? :-P
Posted by: The Science Pundit | July 10, 2009 12:57 PM
Welp, best get back to the old primordial ooze. I'll just shred myself back down into RNA now.
Posted by: Jason Thibeault | July 10, 2009 1:03 PM
Not good enough, Jason. I demand hydrogen.
Posted by: Stephanie Z | July 10, 2009 1:11 PM
Hydrogen? That's way too recent. We need a good dose of nothingness.
Posted by: Ben Zvan | July 10, 2009 3:33 PM
Look, you can't get everything back into nothing! That's just not scientific! [/hovind]
Posted by: Jason Thibeault | July 10, 2009 7:38 PM
So wait, you cannot rip CDs or DVDs in Linux, but you can in Windows or Mac? I am clearly missing a few details here.
Posted by: Brandon | July 10, 2009 7:49 PM
I applaud omar's very dry sense of humor.
Posted by: Greg Laden | July 10, 2009 8:15 PM
Posted by: Dan J | July 10, 2009 11:34 PM
Huh, I always thought of DVD as some open medium just floating around. Thanks for clearing that up.
Posted by: Brandon | July 11, 2009 2:09 AM
Oh, the DVD media itself isn't the problem. See Content Scramble System on Wikipedia for some background info. The CSS keys used for encryption/decryption must be licensed from the DVD Copy Control Association. Most major studios are members of this association. You might (or might not) notice that many DVDs from small distribution companies are not encrypted. These distributors/publishers realize that the DRM does not help them, and they aren't willing to pay licensing fees for something that simply doesn't work.
Posted by: Dan J | July 11, 2009 7:35 AM
All my friends who have kids hate the DRM and are always looking for the latest pirating software. If there's one thing in life that's for sure (besides death and taxes), it's that kids will destroy DVD's. That's why when you pick up the latest Pixar DVD, the first thing you want to do is rip it, then burn off several copies, and keep the original where the kids can't get to it.
Posted by: The Science Pundit | July 11, 2009 8:38 AM
If your DVD breaks, they should give you a new one. But they don't. They claim you did not really buy the DVD, you bought the rights. But then, you shold be able to protect your rights by making a copy.
Posted by: omar | July 11, 2009 11:52 AM
Yes, you should be able to protect yourself by making a backup copy, but that's not what the entertainment industry wants. They only want your money. And since they already have so much of it to begin with, which allows them to purchase all the legislation power they desire, they usually get what they want.
Posted by: Dan J | July 11, 2009 2:30 PM
The person who said that DVD is better than VHS because DVD doesn't degrade with every use, never had kids.
Posted by: MarkusR | July 12, 2009 11:16 AM
Totally agree! Kids are nightmare! Law should allow us to make as many copies as we want when we have kids in house. I keep my DVD's and BluRay's in the locked case. I hope they will never guess the code to the lock.
Posted by: agencja Reklamowa | July 14, 2009 6:32 AM
Aimersoft DVD Ripper is the most powerful one that I have used before. It has great power to rip DVD to video of all formats.
Unbiased reviews and side-by-side comparisons of DVD Ripper give you enough information to research the ins and outs of a particular product.
For mac user, Use this DVD Ripper Mac.
Posted by: DVD iPod | July 17, 2009 6:41 AM