According to ExtremeTech, content protection company Macrovision plans to announce on Tuesday that it has developed a way to eliminate the vast majority of DVD copying - that is using DVD "ripping" software. I'll be honest, I've "ripped" DVDs to my Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) 2005 PC's hard drive.
The reason I "rip" to my hard disk is two-fold. For one, it lets me play a movie using the MCE remote control without getting up from the sofa and inserting a DVD into the player. Secondly, I've learned from experience, that not everyone treats DVDs/CDs with the same care that I do. I've lent CDs and DVDs in the past to friends/family and they've come back with scratches that cause the music to skip/stutter or the DVD movie to jump to an entirely random location of the movie.
Should I be forced to go out and purchase the same movie I already have in my movie collection and that I've paid for? Doesn't the Fair Use Act allow me to make reasonable backups of my CDs and DVDs? Apparently, not... Or at least the Fair Use Act is at odds with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The DMCA was used to help bring down 321 Studios which offered DVD ripping/DVD backup software program.
Read the full story about the new DVD copy protection mechanism here:
New Tech Prevents DVD Copying, Kills "Rippers"
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