You'd be OK with that? By all extents and purposes, we'd be doing EXACTLY what you're defending.
YES! YES! YES!
I'm more than OK with that, I think its absolutely a right to do that!
I'm not altering "the movie", which the copyright owner does control, but only my copy of "the movie", which I bought and paid for. I'm free to do with my copy of the movie whatever I darn well please, including changing the plot, the characters, or whatever else suits me. I can do likewise with each and every book I own, and no publisher could care less!
I could pay my local literature professor to rewrite the end of The Da Vinci Code to better suit my tastes, tear out the pages from my copy of the book and replace them with the improved version, and nobody, nobody would give a flying flip that I had done so.
The individual alteration of a legal copy of a copyrighted work should be perfectly OK with everybody! Again, you're tying up the technology with the issue. The only reason ripping a DVD is involved at all is because the technology requires it to do the same thing as my book example above. Your only objection can be with the technology involved, not the action of altering my personal, legal copy of the work.
The sole act of ripping a DVD is only illegal because the studios want it to be. The sole act of breaking the copy protection is illegal only because the studios want it to be. There is no basis in historical copyright law to support the philosophy that those two things should be against the law.
The presumption behind those laws is that ripping and breaking copy protection are in preparation for illegal copying, duplication and piracy. But what if they aren't? What if I'm making a backup copy or ripping it to my laptop so I don't have to carry the discs with me, or trying to edit out all the unskippable commercials at the beginning of the disc? Every one of those activities are perfectly legal with any other medium.
See, the movie industry made exactly the same arguments as we have here when VCRs were invented. The fact that a VCR even had the capability to record was scary and offensive to them. The only possible use for video recording, in their estimation, was to run an illegal movie copying operation. The courts and congress didn't buy that foolishness at the time, and allowed the manufacture and sale of VCRs that could record. It appears that the industry lobbiests are more powerful and organized this time around.
IMO, any activity that does not deprive the copyright holder of sales they would have and should have realized should be entirely legal and beyond the control of the copyright holder. If I copy the work and sell, rent or give it away, sue me. If I show, read or perform the work publicly without permission, sue me. But if I want to edit, alter, rewrite, rearrange, shred, fold, spindle or mutilate my personal copy of a work, or pay someone else to do any of those things for me, I should be completely free to do so.
"The sole act of ripping a DVD is only illegal because the studios want it to be. The sole act of breaking the copy protection is illegal only because the studios want it to be. There is no basis in historical copyright law to support the philosophy that those two things should be against the law.
The presumption behind those laws is that ripping and breaking copy protection are in preparation for illegal copying, duplication and piracy. But what if they aren't? What if I'm making a backup copy or ripping it to my laptop so I don't have to carry the discs with me, or trying to edit out all the unskippable commercials at the beginning of the disc? Every one of those activities are perfectly legal with any other medium."
Chris, I know where you're going with this, but the bottom line is regardless of all of it, the law says you can't do it legally.
Much of what you said could easily be applied to other issues, with equal furvor.
"IMO, any activity that does not deprive the copyright holder of sales they would have and should have realized should be entirely legal and beyond the control of the copyright holder. If I copy the work and sell, rent or give it away, sue me. If I show, read or perform the work publicly without permission, sue me. But if I want to edit, alter, rewrite, rearrange, shred, fold, spindle or mutilate my personal copy of a work, or pay someone else to do any of those things for me, I should be completely free to do so."
Actually, that statement alone says you agree with the decision, because, as I've said repeatedly, that is exactly what the crux of the case being discussed, and this thread are about.
Take a look at Cleanflicks.com. They are doing EXACTLY what you just described.
I dare say they shouldn't just be sued, but at the level they are operating, I think Jail time for them, above and beyond the 250,000.00 per violation (and it appears they'd be paying into the next millenium)
"I could pay my local literature professor to rewrite the end of The Da Vinci Code to better suit my tastes, tear out the pages from my copy of the book and replace them with the improved version, and nobody, nobody would give a flying flip that I had done so."
Yes but you would not have the right to then SELL the book as "The DaVinci Code", for it no longer is that book by that author.