09.10.2008 — Ripping has become a naughty word in this era of digital rights management (DRM). For that reason, many developers of DVD-copying solutions avoid the term.
Instead, they use terms such as archiving, transferring, storing, backing up, imaging …. Do they all mean the same thing?
I tend to use the terms interchangeably.
In my
earlier story about DVD ripping and storage, I quoted ReQuest CEO Peter Cholnoky as saying about the new Intelligent Media Client (ICM): "We do not rip DVDs. The system will create a personal backup or archive of the DVD on the server."
Then I wrote, "Evidently, 'ripping' a DVD is not the same thing as 'archiving" it."
In fact, it is
not, according to a follow-up from Cholnoky:
Ripping is NOT the same as what we do. This is not a trivial point! When you rip a DVD you remove CSS [Content Scrambling System], remove copy protection, and reformat the content. Why do you think that programs like ANYDVD are not sold in the US and have been called illegal? Because they RIP DVDs. They remove CSS. It actually is a big difference.
ReQuest makes a bit-for-bit archive with no decoding, no compression, and no removal of CSS. We do not alter the image.
Is it just semantics?
Well, yes, when you consider that the
DVD CCA doesn't care what you call it.
They're going to litigate licensees (viz. Kaleidescape) regardless if CSS remains intact on copied DVDs, i.e., if they're "ripped" or "archived."
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As for the bigger legal questions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the jury is still out.
The DMCA criminalizes the production of technology that allows the circumvention of DRM protections such as DVD decryption software.
By "archiving" DVDs with their decryption "wrappers" intact – by copying "bit for bit" -- ReQuest, Kaleidescape, Fusion and others seem to abide by the letter and the spirit of the DMCA.
Back to the definitions: Is the term "ripping" generally understood as the "illegal" form of copying a disk? Likewise, is "archiving" known as the bit-for-bit "legal" way of doing it? If so, I will certainly make the distinctions in the future.
Would lexicographers please chime in?
It is not semantics, and in the balance are our rights, what we are entitled too, what is legal and what is theft. Unfortunately by interchangeably using these terms it becomes possible for others to lump these very distinct functions and forms together, calling for a summary judgment on all approaches.
Keeping the “lock” on the data and only licensing the key is simply a dirty technicality of it’s own, preventing the legitimate holder from fully enjoying the rights of ownership and even extending to and limiting fair use.
I applaud all media server companies who try to develop processes which keep the spirit of anti piracy while still growing legitimate markets.