How is the DMCA good for anyone?
I own a few movies. I have spent a few dollars to support the MPAA and its associates. Since I happen to have roughly 8 Tb of hard drive space in my house, I would like to be able to legally backup all of my movies to protect from accidental scratches etc. that may occur. The other day a verdict was announce by some idiot judge illustrating how screwed up the DMCA has made the copyright legal matters. Let me sum this up for you. RealDVD is a software company that tried their best. They attempted to legally sell a product allowing a user to copy a dvd (only once) and honestly attempted to reward to correct copyright representatives. Even though they tried everything they could think of, they were still found to be hawking illegal software due to the fact that it breaks the copyright created to protect dvd’s (even though this was broken and freely distributed in the 90′s). The judge even made a point to announce that it was perfectly legal for an individual to have a digital copy of a dvd … he just didn’t fill in the little detail of how to legally obtain a digital copy yourself. Now I guess I can purchase a copy from ITunes (loaded with DRM) or pay extra for a dvd that comes with a ‘bonus digital copy’ (also loaded with even scarier DRM) … but how do I take what I have already paid for and produce a backup without an additional expense? The answer is apparently simple … break the law by using an ‘illegal’ piece of software, or move outta the US of A. Damn Commies!