Legal Issues About DVDFAB9

[Gabbanelli911]

Ok, maybe I'm too late in asking this question. I bought this program several months ago and I have only copied the movies that I have bought with my money. My question is, is it legal to make copies of my movies here in the United States? Please let me know and tell me which code of law talks about this. I bought this program because I got tired of buying the same movie more than once due to scratches (I have children!). I also bought this program because I don't like the options given by iTunes, that you can only use certain devices to watch a movie, plus they don't offer subtitles or other languages.

Thanks for your info.

[signals]

When you copy a movie with DVDFab, you are excersizing what is called "Fair Use" in US copyright law. You can read about Fair Use and other copyright matters in Title 17 of the US Code.

Here is a link for a Fair Use FAQ published by the Library of Congress: http://search.loc.gov:8765/cs.html?c...=loc&n=1&la=en

The actual law is here: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.pdf

In a great example of regulatory hypocrisy, the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) specifically allows Fair Use but prohibits any mechanism (hardware or software) that allows you to exercise these rights. It was written as you may expect, by lobbyists for copright owners. This is why it is illegal to sell DVDFab in the US and some other places.

Note that when you buy a Blu-ray of a movie, while you have the Fair Use right to make a backup copy, you do not (according to the movie studios) have the right to reverse engineer or defeat the protection that is included on the disc, but this is not a copyright issue, it is part of the playback license granted by AACS (a consortium of the studios) to the company that made your Blu-ray player and to you when you bought the disc. Here is an interesting letter that the US Copyright Office received concerning this very issue, it was part of the public comment when the DMCA was being considered: http://www.copyright.gov/1201/comments/038.pdf

Despite the dire warnings on every DVD and Blu-ray, I really don't think the FBI cares if you make a backup copy of a disc that you personally own or convert it to a more convenient format for playback.