07.09.2008 — You would never rip a DVD, would you?

Apparently you would and you aren't scared of walking the plank.

One-third of citizens in the U.S. and UK are ripping DVDs, according to a new report from Futuresource Consulting.

"Consumer Home Piracy Market Research" says that's an increase over last year when the same study revealed one quarter of citizens ripped DVDs.

The survey says consumers in the UK copied an average of 13 new releases against 9 catalog titles.

The U.S. is slightly down with consumers ripping 7.4 new releases against six old titles.

Sixty-two percent of U.S. respondents and 49 percent of U.K. respondents say they've copied a new movie they own, while 38 percent of U.S. respondents and 30 percent of U.K. respondents say they've copied a rental.

The legality of ripping DVDs obviously is a touchy subject, but the numbers shouldn't be alarming.

High-end media server manufacturer Kaleidescape knows the subject all to well, of course, being brought to court by the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) for the way its servers import DVDs.

Kaleidescape won the court case and plans to release a Blu-ray player in 2009 that may have the capability to import Blu-ray discs. (The company recently released a 1080p upconverter player that "rivals" Blu-ray.)

There are other media server companies starting to talk more about the subject, as well. Vidabox has added HD DVD and Blu-ray ripping to its media centers.

And Niveus Media recently rolled out a new user interface, Movie Gallery, that displays metadata for all the movies on a server — whether they are recorded, downloaded or ripped.

Niveus didn't install encryption software, leaving that option up to the installer.

These companies may not come right out and encourage content ripping, but they probably wish they could.