DVD X Copy, rest in peace.

February 22, 2004 1:00 AM

Feds rule that DVD X Copy is now illegal. What will become of other DVD burning software? The MPAA considers a major victory, but are the people who may use it legitimately getting the shaft, or will we see an increase in recovery outfits?
posted by JakeEXTREME (19 comments total)

321 Studios is at least planning to take this to the Supreme Court, so maybe (this part of) the DMCA will get struck down.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 1:45 AM on February 22, 2004

Well, though I never had a reason to do so before yesterday, I just went out today and bought a copy of DVD X Copy Platinum. Now that the MPAA has decided to infringe upon my fair use rights I think I'll start burning copies of my 450+ [legally obtained] DVDs. Not because I necessarily need to, but because they don't want me to.

Bastards.

I hope 321 Studios puts my money to good use.
posted by wdpeck at 2:11 AM on February 22, 2004

Can one use DVD X Copy to copy itself?
posted by DBAPaul at 2:43 AM on February 22, 2004

The one thing X Copy didn't do (that I could tell) was to simply rip the movies into a file for storage. I would love to make a movie server of my own legally obtained movies, but can't find anything to easily get the movie from disc to DivX.
posted by benjh at 5:31 AM on February 22, 2004

benjh - doom9 should have what you need
posted by gravelshoes at 6:06 AM on February 22, 2004

...the people who may use it legitimately...

That's a good one!
posted by Robot Johnny at 9:05 AM on February 22, 2004

Some people do use software like this fairly. For instance, let's say you are traveling, and you want to take a few DVDs with you. Would you rather take for $1 backups of DVDs you own, or your $20-$30 discs? If you lose your backup, you can always just make another. If you lose your disc, you're out another $20-$30.
posted by benjh at 9:17 AM on February 22, 2004

well perhaps if they lose their court challenges their source code will get 'stolen' by 'hackers' and put out for free on the internet :)
posted by MrLint at 9:40 AM on February 22, 2004

How is this different from banning VCRs again?
posted by scarabic at 9:51 AM on February 22, 2004

Robot Johnny, I don't use DVD X Copy, but I use similar applications legitimately. I copy my DVDs to my hard drive, compress them to Xvid and watch them while I'm doing other work on my computer. Any duplication technology, such as the Xerox machine, can be used for legitimate or illegitimate purposes.

I've downloaded a couple of movies off the net and can't be bothered with the hassle. It's too slow and unreliable, even with a technology (which I'm sure you think should be outlawed as well since it could never be used for a legitimate purpose) such as BitTorrent. I also don't mind at the very least renting a movie even if it's something I probably wouldn't want to own.
posted by substrate at 10:12 AM on February 22, 2004

In fact if they somehow managed to completely ban and enforce via hardware the inability to copy DVDs I'd probably stop watching them. All of the last dozen or so DVDs I've watched have been on my computer from a Xvid file.
posted by substrate at 10:14 AM on February 22, 2004

benjh: There's no easy way to do it, at the moment, that results in good quality. I have a guide somewhere on ripping a DVD to a a killer quality Matroska vid with 6-channel AAC audio, if you want me to dig it up, but it's not simple.
posted by Jairus at 10:25 AM on February 22, 2004

That just makes me want to get a dedicated duplicator. Anybody know if you can copy commercial disks with duplicators like those at ESBuy?
posted by shagoth at 10:41 AM on February 22, 2004

I know a few parents who back up their kids' DVDs because of the wear and tear imposed by frequent use and still-clumsy fingers. I expect that will become a more popular thing to do as DVD burners become more popular.

Fortunately, the freeware DVD Shrink and a burning program like Nero do the same thing as X Copy.
posted by Mayor Curley at 11:25 AM on February 22, 2004

Benjh AutoGordianKnot is free, open source, and of the many automated dvd-to-divx applications I've tried, its the only one that works as well, if not better, than doing every step by hand.
posted by Grod at 11:46 AM on February 22, 2004

Now more than ever, please revisit this thread. Many answers to be had there, and the links therein.

For what its worth, I think the genie is a little too far out of the bottle for this ruling to stand.
posted by Wulfgar! at 12:49 PM on February 22, 2004

DVD X Copy is pretty featureless, anyway. I paid $100 for DVD X Copy Platinum, only to find that it doesn't do anything about region protection (which is why I bought it in the first place - I'd like to be able to show my legally bought region 2 DVDs at other people's houses, without having to drag my region-free player along.) Besides, who wants a piece of software that asks you patronizing questions when you start it up?

I uninstalled DVD X Copy, and now I use the DVD Shrink program that Mayor Curley linked to above. It removes the region encoding (unlike DVD X Copy), lets you store your DVD files on your hard disk as long as you like (unlike DVD X Copy) and it's totally free. Plus, you can have it show you a cute little slide show of your movie as it rips it. aww, lookit the lil' movie!
posted by vorfeed at 3:05 PM on February 22, 2004

How is this different from banning VCRs again?

How is this different from banning Radio broadcast of music?

I heard a guy from EFF once mention that musicians were outraged when radio came - no more reason for anyone to go to see live music anymore. Same as records to tapes, video and VCR, cd to mp3 and dvd to dvd-r. (sort of)
posted by tomplus2 at 3:59 PM on February 22, 2004

In Thailand, everybody watches VCDs (MPEG-1). A movie come on two CD-Rs. They sell them off of spindles, usually with a set of pre-cut CD case sleeves in a perfectly-sized mylar bag.

Soon the American and European working classes will wake up and realize how little separates them from the mass of hard-working, intelligent brown people who have the situation of having been born somewhere else.

And it's not like we're going to hold a revolution, but we won't be able to afford the pleasure prison they've built for us, so what's the difference?
posted by squirrel at 7:38 PM on February 22, 2004