Know how to pull audio off DVD?

[Justin01]

Does anyone know of any software that will rip audio from a DVD? What I'm trying to do is pull some music off some DVD's and was wondering if there was any decent software out there that would allow you to do this.

Would Sound Forge or Cool Edit allow me to capture the audio if I ran the RCA outs from the dvd player into my sound card or would the protections built into DVD's prevent this?

Now, before you all start your rants about copyright infringment, I'll let you know this... I work at the largest radio station in New Hampshire (large for NH, pretty small anywhere else) and we have licensing agreements with BMI and ASCAP which allow us to use nearly all the music available out there. One of the DJ's wants to see if theres a relatively simple and inexpensive way to grab audio from a DVD and I let him know I'd check into it.

Thanks.

[Justin01]

Take it thats a resounding, NO... I suppose :cheesy:

[jwenting]

If you indeed have that deal you should be able to contact the copyright holders and get the audio sent to you as a CD or DVD track.
Far easier and legal...

Remember it's very easy for people to make unsubstantiated claims to fool others into helping them do something illegal, and the older people here have probably heard most variations over the years.

[Lightninghawk]

My friend it can be done, but it's illegal.

Like jwenting said. It's only legal when the person(s) with the copyright send you the material, and not just try to let you pull it from something.

[Justin01]

JW-
Remember it's very easy for people to make unsubstantiated claims to fool others into helping them do something illegal, and the older people here have probably heard most variations over the years.

I can respect that. It is the internet after all. Just to clarify a little bit, I currently work for a medium sized radio station cluster, WMLL, WZID, and WFEA. We're owned by Saga Communications, who has about 30 clusters of stations(about 75 stations or so) and a handful of television stations throughout the country. They're all medium/small markets such as Manchester NH, Portland Maine, Cinncinati, etc. Anyway, feel free to call me here at the station if you would like to substantiate my claim ;) .

LH- My friend it can be done, but it's illegal.

Like jwenting said. It's only legal when the person(s) with the copyright send you the material, and not just try to let you pull it from something.

This got me thinking when I read this. I had this discussion before I started this thread about the legality of ripping audio from CD's and DVD's with several of our DJ's. They said what they were doing was absolutely legal. But you got me wondering, Lightning. So I went to two of our managers, people that have been in radio for many years, and asked them the same question. Is ripping music legal under our licensing agreements with BMI, ASCAP, and CCAP(I think is what its called)? The response goes as follows.

BMI and ASCAP do not distribute music. What they do is represent the artists and songwriters. Under our agreements with these organizations(which represent about 99% of artists out there), we are permitted to use everything out there covered under the BMI and ASCAP umbrella, which is basically everything, regardless of how we get the music. We DO NOT have to have the artist send us the music. Now, the way these organizations figure out what we as a radio station should be paying in royalties is this.... They will audit our playlists quarterly or biannually, see how many times an individual artists song(s) has been played, run it through some type of complicated formula which takes into account how much revenue our radio station makes, then bills us accordingly.

Take Steve Miller for example. Say we play Steve Millers songs x amount of times in a three month period. We will send in our playlist, they see Steve Millers songs played 78 times in 3 months, and they will send us a bill for say $100 or whatever. Furthermore, since Steve Miller writes and performs his songs, he actually will get two checks. Writers usually make more than the performers do in royalties.

SOooo, thats my long winded explanation as to why it's not illegal for us to rip music and add it to our library. That being said, I totally understand why you guys are as cautious about doling out information as you are.