"Digital Copy" - Is this the biggest ripoff or wrong?

[atomic]

I am just wondering but is this the biggest ripoff for the consumer or am I just wrong?

I can not stand how DVD's are marketed in letting people believe that it is quite simple to transfer your digital copy onto a mp3 player. I only bought one of these movies it would not copy onto my sony nwz726.

I believe that if it told to you on the box that you can transfer it without any problems it should just work. Yes, maybe it is more for your computer laptop, but it does say will tranfer to potable player. It seems that these are only made for ipod? Or? So I stay away from this option with dvd. I hope that dvd's are still around in two years. I will cry if not LOL!

[CrowdAds]

[Olley]

Yes, it is a rip-off. Don't buy any DVD for the digital copy. Half are not even on the dvd, but just a code you have to use online to download the movie with. They demand you give up personal information, and DRM the file so it will only play on your PC.

[dfkt]

Thread moved with redirect to 'Media'. Thread title (original 'Is this the biggest ripoff or wrong?') changed.

Old, but still valid:

Stealing Fair Use, Selling It Back to You

Posted by Fred von Lohmann

"Apparently, Hollywood believes that you should have to re-purchase all your DVD movies a second time if you want to watch them on your iPod." That's what I said last week, commenting on the Paramount v. Load-N-Go lawsuit, in which Hollywood studios claimed that it is illegal to rip a DVD to put on a personal video player (PVP), even if you own the DVD.

Well, this week the other shoe dropped. According to an article in the New York Times:

Customers who buy the physical DVD of Warner Brothers' "Superman Returns" in a Wal-Mart store will have the option of downloading a digital copy of the film to their portable devices for $1.97, personal computer for $2.97, or both for $3.97.

So you buy the DVD, and if you want a copy on your PVP or computer, you have to pay a second time. Despite the fact that you bought the DVD, and you have a DVD drive in your computer that is perfectly capable of making a personal-use copy. Imagine if the record labels offered you this "deal" for every CD you bought -- pay us a few dollars extra, and you can have a copy for your iPod. And a few more dollars, if you want a copy on your computer, too! As LA Times reporter Jon Healey puts it in his blog: "So from the perspective of the studios and federal officials, consumers have to pay for the privilege of doing the sorts of things with DVDs that they're accustomed to doing with CDs (and LPs and cassettes)."

This latest bitter fruit from Hollywood is brought to you by the DMCA, which treats "protected" content (like the encrypted video on DVDs), differently from "unprotected" content (like every audio and video media format introduced before 1996). Thanks to the DMCA, Hollywood believes fair use personal-use copies simply do not exist when it comes to DVDs.

Given that the Copyright Office has refused [PDF, see p. 71-72] to recognize any DMCA exemption for space-shifting, claiming that putting a DVD you own on your iPod "is either infringing, or, even if it were noninfringing, would be merely a convenience," (excuse me, Copyright Office, that's a decision for a court to make) the ball is now in Congress' court. Let's hope Congressman Rick Boucher is listening and will reintroduce his DMCA reform bill first thing next year.

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2006/11...ng-it-back-you

[eboyer93]

I got one with The Dark Knight. It went on my Creative ZEN easily but the video quality was poor so it wasn't worth it. It would be better to just rip the DVD and convert it.