About DVD Movie Copying Software
Studios Try to Stop Those Who Break Copy Protected Movie DVDs
© John Wu
Nov 2, 2009
Nearly all DVD movies contain copy protection that defeat most amateur attempts to copy a DVD. Macrovision's Rip Guard and Sony's ARccOS are two copy protection schemes in common use on most DVD movies. Macrovision claims that 85% to 95% of consumers are not sophisticated or patient enough to pirate movies even though software exists today that can circumvent all known copy protection schemes.
In the early years of DVD recorders on personal computers, software such as DVD Decrypter duplicated copy protected DVD movies and burned them onto blank DVDs. That type of software was even sold in retail outlets. In 2005, Macrovision sent a cease and desist order to Lightning UK, the makers of DVD Decrypter. Lightning UK was forced to shut down their website and discontinue distribution of their software.
Copying DVD Movies
Today, the author of the old DVD Decrypter software develops a new freeware DVD duplication program running on Windows called ImgBurn. ImgBurn does not have the ability to remove copy protection, but it interacts with drivers that decrypt DVDs on the fly.
There are add-on Windows drivers for the computer's DVD drive which remove copy protection before the data is passed on to the computer. The driver is unable to directly write data to any media. In other words, the driver strips the copy protection as it reads a DVD while an image burner program such as ImgBurn takes the stream of data and writes it to hard drive or a blank DVD. So far, driver based decryption has survived legal challenges so far.
There are two drivers for Microsoft Windows systems that decrypt DVDs on the fly, allowing them to be ripped by DVD imaging programs such as ImgBurn. DVD43, which stands for DVD For Free, is a freeware driver on Microsoft Windows which decrypts data from DVDs on the fly to remove region zone protection and copy protection. AnyDVD is a shareware program that does the same thing and works with HD DVD and Blu-Ray disks as well. There are many users that are happy with both drivers.
Legal Issues With Movie Copying Software
The use of DVD decryption programs and drivers is illegal in Germany. Even distributing a link to the software or software drivers that decrypt DVDs is considered illegal.
The legal status of DVD decryption drivers in other parts of the world has not been decided. Keep in mind that movie piracy itself is illegal in most parts of the world, including the United States.
In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) prohibits the use of software to remove copy protection in order to duplicate a DVD. The final legal disposition of DVD drivers such as DVD43 and AnyDVD is uncertain.
The struggle of studios to prevent DVD movie copying continues years after the DCMA came into existence. With the cost of a blank DVD reaching as low as 10 cents per DVD and 1 TB hard drives going down to $100 each, it has become very cost effective for those who engage in this legally questionable activity.
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