What does the law say about?

[Atown]

Ok so i have a mythbuntu/apache/teamspeak/misc. server in my house. the specs for those curious can be found at my website but:

Custom Built 64-bit Celeron 2.8ghz, 2x 256mb DDR RAM Dual Channel, 80gb Storage - Mythbuntu and runs with SSH,FTP, CS 1.6 and Source, Samba and Apache.

Status - Working Fully, trying to get network printing to work.

Now i also have the full season of Outlaw Star, and its kinda a pain to get up every time, get my box out, open the dvd cases, put a dvd in, watch it, pull it back out, repeat. Am i allowed to use a program and rip them all into mp4 or ogm, or whatever and have it sit on my mythbuntu. and on that same note, can i save myself some trouble and use a torrent that has the entire season already in some digital form?

 

[vibrokatana]

Well when you use a torrent you are also distributing said material so it is theoretically impossible to defend in court. Besides you can encode stuff at nearly the same quality as on the disk with h264.

 

[nattyg]

at least as far as DMCA is concerned...most likely not since you'd be circumventing a copy protection mechanism; this is pretty much a huge case of the law being flat out wrong and MAYBE one day it will catch up...

/cough AnyDvd /cough

 

[XionTawa]

You are legally allowed to back up your DVDs on your PC, but you may not have them access the internet by torrents or anything else they may distribute them... However, again, you are legally allowed to back up your DVDs, YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO REMOVE PROTECTION...therefore...no, you cannot back them up on your PC... (I know, very stupid, but whatever...)

 

[Kidan]

Remember, our current laws, and the way legislation and those businesses are moving is so that to be in compliance with the law, you'll need to purchase a copy of the media for every device you wish to play it on. DRM is not to stop piracy, it's to milk more money out of those who want to use the media they purchase in the ways they want.

 

[Odale]

Well said Kidan.