Copyright Office Vetoes DVD Ripping

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People who want to tinker with their DVDs in order to view the contents on tablets are out of luck, at least for now, thanks to a decision today by the U.S. Copyright Office.

The Librarian of Congress and Register of Copyrights today rejected a proposal to allow people to "space shift" by ripping DVDs. Technically, the officials didn't rule on copying, but on whether people should be able to circumvent digital rights management software in order to view movies without a DVD player. But given that virtually all DVDs have such software, the ruling prohibits people from legally reformatting movies to make them  compatible with tablets, laptops or other devices that lack a DVD reader.

The digital rights group Public Knowledge was among those who asked the Copyright Office to allow people to crack DRM in order to watch movies on tablets. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal to circumvent DRM in most situations, but also empowers the Copyright Office to make exceptions to the anti-circumvention rules.

"Since the late 1990s, consumers have purchased billions of motion pictures on DVD," Public Knowledge argued in its comments to the Copyright Office. "As entertainment devices move away from containing DVD drives, many of those consumers have a legitimate desire to transfer their lawfully acquired motion picture from DVD into a format that is accessible on these newer devices."

But the regulators weren't persuaded. Why not? For one thing, the report issued today says that people don't have the right to access material in a "preferred format."

"Indeed," says the report, "copyright owners typically have the legal authority to decide whether and how to exploit new formats."

The Copyright Office also said that people can purchase a peripheral device for their DVDs, or use "an online subscription service to access and play desired content."

Public Knowledge says the decision "flies in the face of reality." The organization is urging Congress to amend the copyright law to explicitly state that space shifting is a fair use.

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2 comments on "Copyright Office Vetoes DVD Ripping".

1. M F from Personal View
   

   commented on: October 25, 2012 at 6:41 p.m.
   it's always nice to get something for free (which Public Knowledge believes all content should be) - but allowing unlimited ripping of DVDs is allowing free file sharing. Make as many copies as you want! Movies are free! But they take hundreds of thousands of man-years to make and they do cost money. When you buy a movie, you understand the rights you get and no one takes them away. Free rights expansion just undermines the model and ultimately the business. Sorry public knowledge, it superficially sounds fair, but ultimately hurts consumers.
2. Corey Kronengold from CKPR
   

   commented on: October 26, 2012 at 9:20 a.m.
   The main issue is still going unaddressed. When you "buy" a movie, what do you buy? A) a physical piece of media / whatever is on the disc? Or B) a license to the content on the disc? The answer, my friends, is still "A." You do not get your "preferred format." And that is why services like WalMart and UltraViolet's "Disc to Digital" exist. You pay $2 additional to get your preferred format. People have needed to stop bitching about DRM for years. Its the DRM - sensible DRM - that will unlock all that content on whatever devices you want to watch on.

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