End of an Era? DVD copying threatened.

[Catweazle]

Whilst I do not support piracy, I really believe that people should have the right to make working copies of the fragile CD and DVD discs they spend hard-earned money on. but it seems that our ability to do so is seriously under threat.

The oldest of the DVD copying tools, DVD Decrypter, has now been taken down from the internet. The product's website has been handed over to the )unnamed) company who won the legal battle with threats, and mirror sites are being contacted and instructed to remove it also.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/11914

What's next? Other similar tools have also been withdrawn recently, and it's going to take a company with pretty persuasive and expensive legal backup to stop the onslaught.

[benlobato]

The internet's far to big a place for the motion picture industry to get rid of all the copies of DVD copying software. For example, there is nothing stopping someone from Azerbaijan from hosting a website that offers such tools.

I remember when Napster was shut down some people thought that it was the end of file-sharing, but now there are more file-sharing programs than ever. You just can't control the beast that is the internet.

[server_crash]

Whilst I do not support piracy, I really believe that people should have the right to make working copies of the fragile CD and DVD discs they spend hard-earned money on. but it seems that our ability to do so is seriously under threat.

The oldest of the DVD copying tools, DVD Decrypter, has now been taken down from the internet. The product's website has been handed over to the )unnamed) company who won the legal battle with threats, and mirror sites are being contacted and instructed to remove it also.

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/11914

What's next? Other similar tools have also been withdrawn recently, and it's going to take a company with pretty persuasive and expensive legal backup to stop the onslaught.

That's stupid. I didn't know DVD decrypter actually copied the dvds; I thought it just decrypted them for further processing! I do have a copy of it, so I guess I better hang on to it. I guess it's like the DVD X Copy, which could copy a dvd to a SINGLE cd-r, but costed 100$. I think that got taken off the market also. This will probably cause more trouble than keeping the tools out there.

By the way, how could someone prove that it's causing their business harm? I mean, I would think that videos being shared on P2P is more harmfull than DD.

[Catweazle]

Let's not get into a debate about P2P please. That is NOT the topic raised. I limited it to people's right to make legitimate backup copies.

There are a number of tools which 'strip' the regional coding and copy protection from DVDs to enable them to be copied. If the pressure is stepped up they could potentially all be removed from legitimate distribution. None of them is provided by a major software publisher which has the resources to combat that level of legal pressure.

[server_crash]

Let's not get into a debate about P2P please. That is NOT the topic raised. I limited it to people's right to make legitimate backup copies.

All I said was what I thought was more harmful to these companys. Sorry if I destroyed your topic.

[benlobato]

You can't control what kind of software is spread throughout the internet. I'm not trying to debate about P2P software, but to me it seems that just like P2P software, DVD copying tools will never be completely extinguished from the internet.

There may not be any legitimate distribution spread through reputable businesses, but what does that matter as long as you can get ahold of the software that will let you make legitimate backup copies of your own DVD's? I don't see the problem here.

[Catweazle]

Sounds likely I'd agree, benlobata, but I wouldn't go so far as to make definitive statements such as 'can't' or 'never'. Matter of fact, I think it highly likely that private distribution of materials will someday soon come under intense pressure, and that such pressure is not really very hard to apply. I think it extremely important to have legitimate distribution sources for software tools, because private distribution newtworks are currently exploiting a 'hole' that isn't really that hard to plug.

Have you ever signed up to a new ISP and noticed that there are different 'levels' of service available. Ever wondered why 'business' packages seem to be more expensive than household ones, even though they seem to offer similar features? The main reason for that is that household services are tailored for activity which is primarily downloading. Uploading is not expected to be any major extent of data transfer activity. Business services, on the other hand, are tailored to handle heavy traffic in both directions.

Currently, ISPs don't generally stringently monitor heavy upload traffic from household or private connections. But it is not difficult for them to do so, and it is not difficult for them to impose upload limits on services.

[belama]

I didn't know DVD decrypter actually copied the dvds; I thought it just decrypted them for further processing!

I also have a copy of it and thats exactly what it does. It just creates the files for copying with programs such as CloneDVD.

[moderate_rock48]

bah, there are alot of programs out there that will decrypt and back up dvds. DVD shrink is one of them, just look and you will find them.