Is Backing Up Your DVDs Illegal?

[ThaGrandCow]

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<< Dude there's a law that says you CAN share your music with your friends..... I forgot the specific name of it..... but it was also what Napster used as "defense" in their case..... >>



Due, there is no law that says you can share your music. It's called music piracy and it's the very reason Napster was shut down by the court. >>

Theres an unwritten rule that music corps. have let go for a long time. Basically you can make copies of CD's with friends and they won't say anything. Once it gets to anonymous sharing thats where the legalities come into play. The former has a range for 1 cd of just a few people. The latter has a potential for thousands of people.



<< Is Backing Up Your DVDs Illegal? >>

In a word: Yes
Backing up a DVD would mean circumventing the CSS encription scheme on the DVD Itself. Doing that is 100% a violation of the Digital Milennium Copyright Act (circumventing a protection or encryption mechanism). Technically it's illegal right now, but like some others have pointed out it hasn't gone to the supreme court yet. When it finally does that will be the deciding factor.

 

[LocutusX]

It doesn't even seem as if providing DeCSS on your web site is an enforceable offense, considering the experience of the following site:

http://www.oblivion.net/mpaa/

 

[Jerboy]

<< It's not illegal to backup your DVD.
It's illegal to sell or give the backup to someone else. >>



I came across quite a few personal websites that mentions swapping music like "I'm looking for blah blah blah, if you have these, please let me know and let's trade "

Some argue that personal music swapping is legal, such as swapping bootlegs and other argues any distribution is strictly forbidden.

An lawyers here who can comment on this?