Can I rip a DVD's sound files?

Factual Questions
1

I have lots of opera DVDs that I buy very cheap (but legally, it’s a magazine collection). I love listening to music while driving but opera CDs are absurdly expensive around here. So it ocurred to me that I could copy some arias from the DVDs and have my own private series of XXX’s Highlights. Except I couldn’t. I am almost a digital illiterate and am at a complete loss.

First I tried on my own. I opened “My Computer” and my D: drive. There were two pastes inside, Audio and Image and inside both of them nothing. There is information there but the computer keeps telling me they’re, and indeed the whole DVD, empty.

I tried searching the board but came up with nothing. Can you guys help me? Do I need a special program? Is it possible to do it?

Thanks.

2

Unfortunately, ripping any data from a DVD is a violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, as it requires circumventing the CSS copy protection. Circumventing copy protection is illegal, thus you can’t legally extract any data from a copy protected DVD.

3

Thanks for the answer. Just one more question. Is that a law in the States or a DVD recording policy worldwide?

4

That’s the current law in the United States, where this server is located. The Motion Picture Association of America has been trying to get similar laws passed in other countries around the world, with varying success.

5

Aleron, are you certain about that?

There was some debate recently on wether or not your right to make private copies for YOURSELF (for backup purposes) would allow you to rip songs.

Currently even some audio CD’s ship with copy protection, yet it is widely accepted that you can rip mp3 songs from them for your own personal use.

What you are doing (changing the format of the audio/video) IS allowed.

6

To the OP: There are many utilities out there to rip DVd audio to mp3 or other formats (just as there are for ripping Cd music to mp3). Try searching google for “audio DVD ripping”. There are shareware and freeware programs out there, which I won’t link to directly, in case what Aleron says is true :wink:

7

I’m not so sure about that. There is fair use, you see. From The Millenium Copyright Act (pdf)

DVDrHelp has foolproof guides and links to tools necessary to do this. Enjoy.

8

Thanx Gaspode, I was hoping someone would drop by and clear thigns up.

9

No sweat. The thing is - it was never illegal to copy a (vinyl/cd) album to a cassette, so you could listen to it in your car. RIAA has problems with the spreading of copies, but AFAIK it has never been an issue when you make a copy just for yourself, for reasons like the one the OP has.

10

Thank you very much everybody. The Gaspode, thanks for the link.

11

I’m not sure minidisc is popular/even exists in America, but with the use of an optical cable, it is possible to record straight from DVD player to a recording minidisc player.

12

CSS encoding of a DVD is optional. Therefore unless you know the DVD is encrypted or not, you may not have to worry about the DMCA. So assuming you’re talking about unencrypted DVD’s, we should be able to freely post links.

By the way, are these DVD-Audio or DVD-Video disks?

13

I’ve recently learned how to do this at the DVDRHelp forums.

It requires two freeware programs. Worked like a charm.