steven n fettig's Jitterin' Thoughts

If I were to talk about purchasing DVD's and ripping the collection so I could watch it on remote TV's in my own home, would I be breaking the law? If I were to go beyond talking about it and do it (i.e. set up a storage system whereby individual computers or custom made devices could access the VIDEO_TS folders), would I be breaking the law? The fact that I can't figure out what I can or can't do with my own DVD collection is more than irritating. I've been reading here and there about other's disdain for DRM - some of whom feel they are forced to violate the law - and sat back in my comfy chair righteously thinking how much of a good boy I'm being by purchasing all my music and video content from legitimate sources, only to realize while trying to make access to my video collection I was running into an issue where I had no idea whether or not what I wanted to do was legal. I relish in my rights to private property and the last thing I think anyone has the right to do is to come on my property or in my house to inspect what I am doing - physically or digitally. Yet, the latest snafus over Sony's Rootkit and ColdPlay's CD insert have made me think twice about these issues. One of the most irritating issues is why I can't share video at home like I do my CD's - i.e. use devices like Sonos or iTunes music sharing. What about video - specifically DVD's - makes it so special. I had originally looked for a commercial device to rip all my DVD's and consoles to play them over the network on a given TV. After much searching, there is no straight-forward way to do this. You always have to (illegally, I think) modify the content of the DVD - i.e. rip it into a single mpeg4 file, etc. - in order to play it on the remote device (say a elgato EyeHome, for example) - at which point the value of the DVD is lost because you no longer have access to chapters or extra features without going through great pains to make them work again.
This is sad. It almost makes me want to go out and simply download the content from P2P networks... If I can't do sensible and legal things with content I spend good money on, then why try doing it legally at all? Worse yet (for the industry), quit using it in the first place.