Do you guys remember some "digital rights management" laws that said that when you buy a DVD player or computer, you didn't really own the hardware, just permission to use it according to the rules determined by the manufacturer?
Example: You want to alter the device driver for your computer's DVD player to skip over 15 minutes of commercials at the start of a DVD (and when you press the skip button it says "Not allowed."). Nope, you shall wait for all those commercials and the copyright message too!
Yes, vaguely. That's a ways away from my area of practice. I think you're right. I think that some modifications to DVD players can be illegal, as you've described.