Is DVD Movie Copying Legal?

Perhaps, the subject title is one of the most controversial topics for the past few years. DVD copying is getting a lot of media attention and its all thanks to the law, which has taken this matter in its own hands. Yet, there are many people who are still confused, since they just don’t understand whether DVD copying is legal or illegal? Thanks to the thousands of free download on the Internet. It often becomes difficult for the Internet users to determine whether to proceed with DVD copying or not?

In this respect, it is important that you do what the law permits you to do and not otherwise. In order to be aware of these aspects, it is important that you know the laws that have been made to safeguard the aspect of copyrighted material. If you go and do your homework about copyrighted materials, you will find out that most of the media format files that you come across are copyrighted rightfully by the owner.

These materials would include e-books, music, movies, games, software application, etc. So why do the owners of these materials copyright their material? The answer is pretty simple. Copyrighting is done, in order to protect the rightful owner of the material by giving him the rights to his materials, may it be with respect to its ownership or its distribution.

When Is Copying DVD's Illegal?

In this way, the owner of the material has the complete freedom to either sell the material or simply distribute it as a freeware. In this respect, creating multiple copies of DVDs /CDs would be considered illegal without obtaining prior permission from the owner. This duplication may be with respect to copying movies, music, etc. Some of the examples of DVD duplication would include downloading movies from illegal websites, downloading movies from P2P (peer to peer) websites, etc. These examples are the illegal ways to copy DVDs and should be never resorted to in any respect.

The DMCA, i.e., Digital Millennium Copyright Act clearly specifies that it is illegal to play around with the CSS (Content Scrambling System) copy protection tool that is actually used by most of DVD films. However, keeping what the law states aside, many companies engage in manufacturing softwares or even freewares for that matter that makes copying DVDs as easy as a breeze. With the help of these DVDs, it becomes pretty easy for people to make copies of their favorite DVDs and do anything with it later on. The legality issue often comes up when these copied versions are sold, which then affects the entire industry.

Typically, there are two things you should use as a guideline:

1. DO NOT make copies of DVD's that you do not own (DVDs you have not purchased). This includes copying rented DVDs.
    

2. DO NOT use DVD copy software that has CSS built into it. CSS has been ruled illegal. Thus, software vendors selling software with CSS bult into it's coding scheme during it's development, is illegal.

In case of these softwares, there are some legal ones as well as illegal ones. The legal ones include names like 1Click DVD Copy Pro,  DVD NeXt Copy, DVD Cloner 6, DVD Fab, Clone DVD, ImToo DVD Copy, etc. All DVD copy software reviewed on this site is legal. That is, during their development, they have not been coded with CSS.