PDAPhoneHome.com - View Single Post - Is Copying DVDs Illegal?

Quote:

Originally posted by BrerLapn
Actually, I don't believe that the link you orinally posted, Dave, would apply to you, because the subjects of those lawsuits are companies that are disseminating technology which is subject to 17 U.S.C. 1201 (part of the Copyright Act). Section 1201 specifically preserves your fair use rights as far as copying of copyrighted material goes. The real trick is how much protection is afforded by the fair use doctrine, which is a notoriously ambiguous body of law. Meaning, in response to RL's post, that copying isn't necessarily technically legal if it falls under the protection of the uair use doctrine.

Practically speaking, your better protection is that you are actually making your copies at home for your personal use and not posting them on Bittorrent or Kazaa, so there's not a realistic way that any copying would ever be a commercial issue for the MPAA or whoever, or that their Kazaa snoops would ever be privy. That doesn't, alone, have an effect on the legality of copying, but it could be relevant to a fair use analysis.

Well, you're the lawyer in the pdaPhonehome family, but I think you are wrong. Quoting directly from Judge Susan Illston's comments...

"It is the technology itself at issue, not the uses to which the copyrighted material may be put," Illston wrote. "Legal downstream use of the copyrighted material by customers is not a defense to the software manufacturer's violation of the provisions (of copyright law)."

I interpret that to mean if I use software that circumvents the copyprotection mechanism incorporated into the movie in order to make a copy of the DVD for whatever purpose, I'm breaking the law. Please explain to me the error in my thinking here.