# Is it legal to rip DVDs?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-rip-dvds/738380>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 23, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-rip-dvds/738380 "2015-11-23T19:50:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sweeteviljesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/898d66/32.png) [@sweeteviljesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweeteviljesus)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-rip-dvds/738380/1 "2015-11-23T19:50:04Z")

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If so, what’s the best software to do it on a Mac?

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**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-rip-dvds/738380/2 "2015-11-23T20:46:34Z")

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Probably not, but the software I use is MacDvdRipper Pro.

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**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-rip-dvds/738380/3 "2015-11-23T21:10:24Z")

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Check the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Basically, it’s not legal to defeat security measures put in place to prevent copying. If the DVD you want to rip has these in place, regardless of if you were planning to do otherwise legal activities (such as creating a backup), you can’t defeat those protections.

There are numerous exemptions and exceptions to the basic rule, however. And it’s a matter of ongoing legal battles.

> **[Digital Millennium Copyright Act](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act)**
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> The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyrig...

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**Author:** ![Carryon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Carryon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carryon)\
**Post date:** [November 23, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-legal-to-rip-dvds/738380/4 "2015-11-23T21:10:42Z")

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In the United States you DO have the right to copy a DVD for your own personal use and as a backup.

The problem is you do NOT have the right to circumvent any copyright protection that may be on the DVD.

So there you have it a catch-22. If you’re talking about a regular DVD as opposed to a blu ray, a tool called DVD Decrypter is helpful. Since it’s not legal everywhere I won’t tell you how to find it, but Google is your friend 🙂

Blu Ray is another story all together since it uses different digital rights management (DRM).

Note, as stated, what I said applies to the USA, different countries have different laws which may make DVD copy legal or not depending on the country.

Once you get the DVD files off the disk you need a tool such as Handbrake (free) to convert it to various formats. Other paid programs are easier to use, but Handbrake will do it all and is free and not that hard to use.