Legit Reviews

I am trying to make two backup copies of the Dark Knight and Wall-E DVDs, but they end with an error saying that the DVD might be protected.

I am using Windows Vista 32 bit.

Any help would be appreciated!

All DVDs are copy-protected. Copy protection on older DVDs can be circumvented with free tools such as RipIt4Me, DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter. Unfortunately, these tools don't work with a lot of new DVDs.

When I ripped "The Dark Knight" (December last year, iirc), the only program capable of removing its copy protection mechanism was AnyDVD and that costs a pretty penny. To be more accurate, I think it cost me ~$85 (AnyDVD HD) after 20% discount and conversion.

Thanks for your recommendation. However, the program you referred to costs too much. I can't afford to buy a copy at present. Is there any freeware can do the trick? I need to backup two more DVD movies, Bangkok Dangerous, and Iron Man. Thanks in advance.

DVDFab HD Decrypter
Unless you are backing up your DVDs to a DVD9 disc you will need to use other software to compress it to fit on a DVD5 disc. I think you can still find DVD Shrink.

You'll still need a program to burn the copy but there are free ones out there. Sorry I don't know any off the top of my head I've used Nero for years. Nero has an application called Recode that allows you to compress a DVD9 copy down to a DVD5 disc and burn it. But I still have to use a program to remove the copy protection from the disc, ala DVDFab.

get DVD shrink
http://www.dvdshrink.org/
or if you want them in the 700mb avi versions get handbrake
http://handbrake.fr/?article=download

alexa09 wrote:Thanks for your recommendation. However, the program you referred to costs too much. I can't afford to buy a copy at present. Is there any freeware can do the trick? I need to backup two more DVD movies, Bangkok Dangerous, and Iron Man. Thanks in advance.

Yeah, I know. I ponied up the $80 because I think it's the only program that's still being updated for Blu-ray decryption. For DVD only, I think DVDFab works on new DVDs and is still being updated for newer copy-protection schemes.

Guys, be careful here...making copies of copy protected DVD's is illegal, even for honest purposes. We don't condone pirating of any kind here.

I thought the law stated that customers have the right to make one backup of their copy? When you have several children under the age of 10 I know I don't feel comfortable giving them the original.

from my understanding it's legal to make backups, so chat away. If anything goes illegal we'll shut the thread as we don't want to deal with that.

It's a battle between fair usage and the Millennium Digital Rights act of 1998. From Wiki

In the noted "321" case, Federal District Judge Susan Illston, of the Northern District of California, ruled that the backup copies made with software such as DVD Decrypter are in fact legal but that distribution of the software used to make them is illegal. As of the date of this revision, neither the US Supreme Court nor the US Congress has taken definitive action on the matter.

In short it is LEGAL to backup your own DVDs but ILLEGAL to use the software to do it! Piracy by definition is decrypting or downloading software without paying for it. Since he has already paid for the DVDs and doesn't intend to sell the copies then it is not piracy. If you do make backups of DVDs you must destroy the "backups" if you ever sell the originals.

Its all a scam anyway. Look at Disney, they are the worst.

This is an extreme example without accurate dates:
1950 Snow White Released
1951 Goes into "The Vault"
1982 Snow White - Collector's Edition released for the VCR
1983 Goes into "The Vault"
1988 Snow White - the two tape Ultimate Collector's Edition released for the VCR
1989 Goes into "The Vault"
1998 Snow White now on DVD
1999 Goes into "The Vault"
2005 Snow White - Collector's Edition with 5.1 surround sound!
2006 Goes into "The Vault"
2009 Snow White on BluRay
2010 Goes into "The Vault"

Give it 5 years and you'll be able to pick up the Ultimate 5 disc Collector's Edition with Walt Disney's Commentary.

Cost to make Snow White in 1950 -$50,000
Money made on rehash sales alone $1,000,000,000

It should be legal to backup the DVD i pay for personal usage.
I've found the free software called DVDSmith Movie Backup to copy the Dark Knight and Wall-e to the computer hard drive, but it couldn't copy my another two new DVDs.

Once you have it copied successfully to your hard drive, then DVD Shrink coupled with Nero should do the rest just fine. Best of luck.

Here's another good reason why to backup your originals. Before there were cheap CD burners and cheap blank media many of us carried around some massive CD wallets in our cars. This is just one of the discs that was ruined by my Memorex CD Wallet. The first two tracks and the last track are utterly trashed. This is just one disc that was ruined out of over 100 that I paid on average $15.

alexa09 wrote:Thanks for your recommendation. However, the program you referred to costs too much. I can't afford to buy a copy at present. Is there any freeware can do the trick? I need to backup two more DVD movies, Bangkok Dangerous, and Iron Man. Thanks in advance.

I hope you can afford to buy the original DVD so that you aren't actually doing anything illegal here.

Why dont you just use the Digital Copy Code and CD that comes in the case with it? At least my Bluray version of Dark Knight let me copy it to a computer, so now I have the BluRay, Portable (on my PC), and PC Version (on my PC).

yeah my copy of Dark Night was the same. I didnt think it was a BD version though?

True, the Blu-ray and special edition DVD version of The Dark Knight (the regular DVD might have it, too, but I'm not sure) came with a code and an extra disc containing a DRM-ed digital copy of the movie (for both Windows Media and iTunes).

There are however, other reasons why a person would want to backup the original DVD instead of just using the digital copy. For example, pure back-up so the original DVD doesn't get scratched due to frequent viewing or conversion for playback on a portable device that doesn't support either included formats or DRM (e.g. PSP). Both of these usage scenarios would fall under fair use.

or if yuou travel alot and dont want to hull around a 100 movies with you everywhere you go its nice to just be able to save em all to your hard drive.