DVD To Pocket PC: Taboo or Fair Use?

[RommelS]

After a couple of columns about big-screen TVs, I'm returning to the small screen--and by small, I mean handheld-size. With the introduction of RCA and Archos portable video players (PVPs), there's been a lot of talk lately about such products, and both I and Senior Editor Eliot Van Buskirk have written about the possibility of a video iPod. But if you're a devotee of Palms, Pocket PCs, and smart phones, you've probably noticed that these devices are viable PVPs, particularly as prices for high-capacity 256MB and 512MB memory cards continue to fall.

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[gbm85]

I agree, they are definitely viable options. I believe if one owns the DVD, they should be allowed to rip it for there own digital use.

[schoon]

Exactly, because what is another option? To have the movie manufacturers start putting out DVD's on Secure Digital cards and we buy them in every format we need? I think about how many VHS movies I owned that I re-purchased on DVD because the quality and extra content of the dvd was worth it. The only value-add I can see about having a movie on my pocket pc is the portability and i'm not about to pay extra for that. I'll simply not watch. So I believe the prodcuts like dvd to pocket pc are viable as long as you own the dvd. Now, if a person starts passing around the created files, I think that is wrong.

[TheWerewolf]

In most countries (US is an exception thanks to the NET and DMCA), copying a DVD down to another format is completely legal as long as two specific conditions are met: you're not making money off making a copy (which is obviously the case), and you are not diminishing the value of the original work significantly (which seems to be the case in this situation).

What's happening here is that the Music and Movie industries want you to buy one copy for each possible use - and that you do not create your own versions. Problem is, outside of the US, it's not illegal to do that..

Even in the US, it's not technically illegal. Where copying a DVD gets you in trouble isn't the copyright act (Title 17 Section 506), it's the DMCA which explicitly prohibits defeating copy protection mechanisms except for research and porting to unsupported media.

That last should be enough to let people recode protected DVDs and CDs - but so far, no one has successfully used that clause as a defence. That's extending the DMCA beyond even its amazingly wide ranging reach.