I don't support ripping to 'share' commercial DVD's with friends. Sorry, I think it's only fair to pay people for their work. I guess I'm funny that way...

I do, however, convert the DVD's I own to a Palm format so that I can watch them on the plane. Since it's a single-use of the product and I don't share, I think I'm okay. After all, even the DVD makers are offering tools for such conversions.

If you're looking for something to do a conversion, I recommend Fair Use Wizard. It works pretty well, though it's a bit slow. If you're willing to start the conversion right as you go to bed, it's a great tool.

Thats just it, you may feel ok about that (as do I) but its illegal under the DMCA. You don't own the content on that DVD, you have purchased a license to play it (in a manor they see fit).

I'm not chastising you at all. To the contrary, I'm pointing out the absurdity of the law. Lets say I had a 1.5 TB RAID array and lets imagine I had written a linux program to automatically copy a DVD's content to my raid array...and imagine if you will that I had Mac Minis on each TV... wouldnt it seem reasonable that when I buy a DVD I could stick it in and 'rip' it so I can watch it over my network? Well too bad thats all imaginary b/c its illegal for me to do that :D ... so i have a bookshelf in my office with 230 some DVDs...its ugly and a dust collector. Funny enough they never squeaked that in regarding CDs... so all of my CDs are neatly packed in soft cases and stored away.

To me, yes! I look at things as if you own a copy of a book.

yeah, me too...its just to bad what I described is totally imaginary in my house :rolleyes: