Court Orders Seizure of “DVD Ripping” Software Domains and Funds

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This is the first time I've heard of the courts seizing domain names and bank accounts over DVD ripping software.

A New York federal court has granted the seizure of several domain names, bank funds and social media accounts belonging to DVD ripping software company DVDFab. Judge Broderick ruled in favor of AACS, the licensing outfit founder by Warner Bros, Disney, Microsoft, Intel and others.
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This is probably going to be in the news for months after EFF get involved?
 
Well, since I'm allowed a backup of the physical media I own, they better damn well provide me with a way to do so, if they are going to shoot down other companies that can.
 
Ruoh said:
Well, since I'm allowed a backup of the physical media I own, they better damn well provide me with a way to do so, if they are going to shoot down other companies that can.
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There was no law that allowed that, it was strictly based on a lawsuit based on law of the time ... once the DMCA was passed (and upheld by the courts) you could make a copy (if the work was not protected) but the breaking of copyright protection or DRM was now illegal (and prohibited copying of the work) ... as we continue to migrate towards digital and cloud media this will eventually become academic as your backup will reside in the cloud (or they will provide more of the combined physical and cloud copy combos with essentially a built in backup)
 
I don’t give a rat’s ass about the DMCA and its anti-circumvention clause. Every DVD and Blu-Ray I buy, I rip and put on my home theater PC. I have no moral dilemma because the companies got the money they demanded for the product.
 
Ok, cool. I'll just download a nice rip from some torrent site to put on my media server.

What was that article from Google? Price and Availability? Well, with DVD ripping software gone, the availability just went out the window.
 
I just opened DVDFab and it says:
DVDFab.com was temporarily blocked by some third party organizations. However, we promise to work this out as soon as we can, in these days, please refer to "en.dvdfab.jp" instead. Thank you.
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Somehow I don't believe that considering they didn't even show up for court. lol

The update came through fine though.
 
Why didn't the judge shut down Walmart & seized all of it's assets. They are the biggest dvd ripping offender in the country!
 
You know, when I was poor and in high school/college - my local BBS pirate site was my means of getting stuff. Then I got older, and you know - I PAID for everything. Like I was supposed to. Regardless of how annoying the DRM protection schemes were. Regardless of the stupid crap these companies were doing in the courts.

Now that I'm really old, and wiser - I'm just going to go back to being a pirate. Thing is, I'd rather just pay for it and use it as I like - it's easier. But apparently, they don't want my money...
 
Ur_Mom said:
Ok, cool. I'll just download a nice rip from some torrent site to put on my media server.

What was that article from Google? Price and Availability? Well, with DVD ripping software gone, the availability just went out the window.
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This.

I now torrent movies of which I own because it is already a pain in the dick to rip what I own to put on my server anyways.
 
This kinda sucks. I used to use DVDFab to copy the movies I already owned to my HTPC ... then I switched to Linux and do it with dd or makemkv .....

But, all this will do is force MORE piracy as people stream and torrent the movies more instead of just ripping what they leagally purchased in the first place.

I used to feel guilty about all of this, but not any more. Too much greed involved.
 
tikiman2012 said:
Walmart owns Vudu. They run that disc to digital scam with the movie industry.
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That is the legally approved method of duplication authorized by the copyright holder (and they only do it where they have authorization) ... you may not like it but that certainly doesn't make it a scam ;)
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
They can't get their hands on ANYDVD-HD I hope.

Is Fair Use legally void, or is it in effect? What does the EFF say?
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Strictly speaking I think they're exploiting a loophole in how the law is written.

Fair Use doctrine says you can make a copy of your own physical media for personal use...it does NOT say anything about removing encryption mechanisms to make that copy you make usable.

Last I checked.

Grated it sure as hell goes against the spirit of the doctrine...and the entire point of Fair Use as regards digital media.
 
This is terrible how they can go after generic tools like this. I have used DVD ripping software for legit purposes such as ripping bootable DVDs to use in VMs or what not. The authors of these programs arn't writing it for people to use for piracy, they're writing it for whatever people want to use it for. Why should they be punished? Fuck this bullshit war on piracy, it's getting so ridiculous and so many people are victimized because of it.

You don't go after gun manufacturers because people are using guns to kill people. This is basically what they're doing.
 
Bet you anything that this has also caused a LOT of people to run out to torrent sites and download cracked versions of DVDFab (to ensure that they will continue to have access to the software).

Can DVDFab sue for those damages? :D
 
In the not too distant future, there will mostly likely only be digital distribution of any and all content.

You know those 8-track cassettes you very occasionally see at garage sales? Yeah .. the ones you wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. This will be you're DVD's ... soonish ... and maybe even Bluray.

Personally I like owning and having control over a physical piece of media. I just spent $33 on Titanfall. I wish I could have had a box and disc along with a manual but I suppose those days are quickly fading.

I'm a bit concerned about the future. This story is just more writing on the wall.
 
I use Slysoft for my ripping stuff. Hopefully since they are overseas...they can avoid this.
 
Skripka said:
Strictly speaking I think they're exploiting a loophole in how the law is written.

Fair Use doctrine says you can make a copy of your own physical media for personal use...it does NOT say anything about removing encryption mechanisms to make that copy you make usable.

Last I checked.

Grated it sure as hell goes against the spirit of the doctrine...and the entire point of Fair Use as regards digital media.
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if memory serves, the only exception about breaking encryption is for stuff that is no longer commercially available but its been a while since i read that part & its a bit fuzzy now
 
I will say one thing. It's very doubtful this Chinese company was caught off guard by this court order / action. I'm sure whatever assets they had coming in were moved into a secure account on a day to day basis. Good luck with the US going into China and taking those assets. Who gives a shit about a handful of domain names.
 
nusse said:
I used to feel guilty about all of this, but not any more. Too much greed involved.
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They could have eliminated alot of piracy if they weren't so greedy.

I used to subscribe to Netflix, 1 disk at a time (for the new stuff not on streaming) & streaming for everything else. Then the media companies got greedy, raised Netflix's cost so much, they had to seperate the DVD's from the streaming. Then they limited and delayed what was available over streaming. I finally gave up and canceled as the selection got worse.

Lower the price (for DVD's or streaming licenses) and increase availability, and you will decrease piracy.

For most people, it's not work the hastle/time/risk to pirate if everything they want is available at a cheap enough price. The people that would still pirate when low cost options are available would never have been customers in the first place, so you can't really count them.
 
Stealing Domain Names is almost as childish as the UK censoring sites like ThePirateBay.


I guess after years of fighting they've decided trading blood for tears in the court rooms sways juries and judges to side with their stupidity.
 
So... let's open source this shit again and fuck the monopoly protection police!
 
They can do what they want, but you know what? It will always be available on a torrent site. So they can get screwed right back. :)
 
Also, just did a google search for blu ray ripper. There are so many other programs out there, so we have tons of options. If they take this one down, many more will be up, so they should just give up there losing battle, as long as the internet is there, there will be these sorts of programs and torrent sites. They can go fuck themselves :D Because in my book I always win, because I will find what I want and how I want to use it. :p Ok I'm done LOL
 
Speaking of DVD ripping, there's people on craigslist who post ads of computers for sale, "Awesome computer, quad core, 8 gigs of ram" type titles and all they put in the images section are multiple images of DVD ripping software. Really odd.
 
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