ripping CDs is legal, ripping DVDs is not?

[space-time]

it seems ripping your own CD is legal, you can do it in iTunes without any extra software. have been like that for years.

ripping your own DVDs is not as simple, you have to either get handbrake (and the latest version requires VLC), or get MacTheRipper, which you have to go through several hoops to get it. Also several companies offer ripping software, but the DMCA makes the legality of these solutions questionable.

why is that? what is fundamentally different? they're both media, which I own and I can play as many times as I want on my CD/DVD player.

Why is ripping CDs so much easier that ripping DVDs? if anything, it should be the other way around. I can watch a DVD once, maybe twice, but then I am done with it. I can listed to a CD for many many years to come.

[freeradical]

I think it has to do with the fact that when CD's first appeared, nobody in the music business foresaw that some day it would be easy to make copies of CD's, so they didn't bother trying to encrypt them or do anything else funny. There are "CD's" that do not conform to the original CD standard, and are actually impossible to play on my iMac; it just spits them out after I put one in.

[Doc]

CDs that conform to spec' are not protected media. Copying a lawfully purchased CD for non-commercial purposes is at least arguably fair use.

DVDs have content/access-controls on them, which bring them under the purview of the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions.

The DMCA makes the possession, distribution or use of any device that can be used for circumvention unlawful.

There is no exception in the DMCA for fair use.

[space-time]

Doc wrote:
...
There is no exception in the DMCA for fair use.

aha, I see.

DMCA: Digital Millennium Copyright Act

do you think this crap will last 1000 years?

[hal]

but why doesn't the digital media copyright act cover audio digital media?

[Doc]

hal wrote:
but why doesn't the digital media copyright act cover audio digital media?

It protects just about any copyrightable material that is protected by an effective technological control.

Digital audio files in DRM wrappers are covered.

[freeradical]

space-time wrote:
[quote=Doc]
...
There is no exception in the DMCA for fair use.

aha, I see.

DMCA: Digital Millennium Copyright Act

do you think this crap will last 1000 years?
Nah, copyright protection ends 50 years after the death of the author, composer, etc.

[space-time]

hal wrote:
but why doesn't the digital media copyright act cover audio digital media?

it's not "digital media copyright act", it is Millenium

[Seacrest]

space-time wrote:
[quote=hal]
but why doesn't the digital media copyright act cover audio digital media?

it's not "digital media copyright act", it is Millennium
So copying digital media is totally legal.
Just don't make copies of any digital millennia.

[Doc]

freeradical wrote:
[quote=space-time]
do you think this crap will last 1000 years?

Nah, copyright protection ends 50 years after the death of the author, composer, etc.
Life + 70, except if it's an unpublished work and the death-date of the author can't be established. Then it's 120 years.

Also, 120 years in the case of a work made for hire to a corporation.

You can thank Disney and the good folks on their payroll in our great legislature.