I have a strong feeling we won't see this product hit the market in the US anytime soon. Now if it came with an external camera than would record movies from your TV as they're playing from the DVD back to the hard drive then that might fly.

This doesn't sound any different from just ripping the DVDs on your computer. Except that it's MORE locked down with DRM.

Also, the argument that it could "enable" copying is kind of garbage since the encryption on DVDs doesn't actually prevent you from making a bit-for-bit copy of the encrypted media. So copying is already inherently enabled by default, without any special software to decrypt DVDs. Instead, the encryption is there to allow the DVD consortium to control which PLAYERS can play DVDs, in order to protect their licensing revenues. The whole argument that DVD encryption is about preventing piracy is fundamentally dishonest.

What's the big deal about that product? I think that by now only lazy or the stupid ones can't rip a DVD?

@I_have_something_to_say: If it happens they will settle on some kind of requirement that makes you insert the disk once a month.

What the hell is wrong with us as a nation? When did we let corporate intrests take over?

When did the hand off occur?

How did our ancestors survive without HOAs?
Did Davinci just sell people a license to his inventions and works?
Who would sue someone playing a phonograph publicly before the RIAA was invented?
How did the movie industry survive with any Tom, Dick, or Harry could see a movie projected on a large outdoor screen from the street?

This shouldn't even be an issue, if you buy a DVD it's yours. There's no EULA on the DVD box, and even if there was THERE SHOULDN'T BE. You buy something you should be able to do whatever you want with it.

If I want to make a mobile for my baby out of a Simpson's box set, or save a season's worth of a show to a hard drive, or if I want to project The Venture Bros. on the side of my house I should be able to.

The whole argument from the MPAA about stopping piracy is horseshit. Pirates will still make ripped DVDs and sell them at mom & pop liquor stores despite you denying me an awesome piece of hardware that could save me a alot of hassle.

The only one loosing here is the very customers they should be coddling because they're being forced into the pirates loving arms with their bully tactics against fair use.

@mbnovik: Just because it's incredibly easy to break the law doesn't mean that a company should be able to sell a product that breaks the law. Now, whether it's actually doing that or not is going to have to be decided by someone who's a bit more familiar with copyright laws than I am.

Halting all innovation due to fear of its possible use is frustrating.

I don't like Flight of the Conchords. The musical numbers, which I gather are the main attraction of the show, are especially boring...so I hope the judge stops this.

Much like the Cardinals season, this will all ultimately end in disappointment. The judge is Santonio Holmes.

What's next, banning the sale of computers?

Morons.

@PSN: kingpsyz: I would say it happened about the time of the creation of the federal reserve. But really it was just handed off from landowners to businesses.

This isn't an amazing device at all. They've had DVD players with internal HDs in Japan (and a few other regions) for years now.

Take the Panasonic DMR-E50, for instance.

Heck, they talk about them in the Genshiken supplemental book and that was published in like 2005 or something.

@nataku83: "Just because it's incredibly easy to break the law doesn't mean that a company should be able to sell a product that breaks the law."

Of course you're assuming that the DMCA should have been enacted in the first place. The law was passed to stop digital piracy, which it clearly does not do. It's real purpose is to eliminate otherwise perfectly legal new business models. Such as the case at issue here.

@GMFish: My question is: If we can have DVRs, why can't we have these? It's basically the same technology. You can already use a DVR to record copyrighted shows and movies.

For the technologically savvy, most of them either already can, or can figure out how to copy a DVD to back it up on their Hard drive.

As such, this is not anything new really. It is just a lousy version of what already exists. The Big Deal is that this is from a well known company, rather than some shady online website.

I have the DMR-E50. You can copy only DVD's that aren't protected, which is very few.

@Corporate_guy: Unless it can also record disks and/or has a USB port or some other kind of data out, this doesn't really seem like it's a big deal at all.

Or unless the HD has just a huge capacity.

I'd be excited about this device, if I didn't have the sinking suspicion it would display "Buffering" every 10 seconds on the screen while playing the damn DVD.

@dragonfire81: I always thought that fell under the "personal use" thing (especially since those movies were broadcast, or purchased (if PPV or something)

But it seems like this product would too, if it can't actually write copies.

@nataku83: Ripping a DVD that you legally own is not breaking the law, arguably, if you are just doing it in order to archive your collection or make it more conveniently accessible for yourself.

And you don't need to break the "copy protection" in order to copy DVDs, technically. So this isn't even an anti-copying measure. It's just an attempt to control how digital video is used so that they can extract additional revenue themselves from all possible distribution channels. They probably don't want people to be able to do this because they want to re-sell you your whole DVD collection as a digital download in a few years.

@discordance, the goddamn boss: "In Japan".

Amazing is most certainly context sensitive.

Besides, even if it's not amazing, that doesn't mean that they should block the sale of it just because someone might do something illegal with it, as long as it has a valid, legal purpose (it does). Restrict the sale? Maybe. But block?

@Bluth_Cornballer: HIGH FIVE!!

Cardinals? I thought we were supposed to get more cats.

@PSN: kingpsyz: as much as I may not like it, when you buy a DVD you are not buying anything but a license to access the data on the DVD.

The RIAA and MPAA both need to die fiery, painful deaths. Cut out the middlemen and let the actors and writers unions own the material they're producing.

@LionelEHutz: Yes, the movie and music industries would LOVE to ban the sale of general-purpose computers. They'd prefer we all use locked-down crippled devices that we can't control the software of ourselves.

Wasn't this settled before with Kaleidescape?

Kaleidescape was a DVD jukebox that ripped DVDs to an internal drive and served them up on a home network. It circumvented the DMCA by copying the files and leavign the DRM intact. It then used a fully licensed decrypter (CSS from the DVDCCA!) to playback the materials much like a normal DVD player.

They were sued by the DVDCCA and won mainly because someone at DVDCCA wasn't paying attention when they were selling licenses.

Fun read:
[www.eetimes.com]

@Sean Masters:
Again WHERE DOES IT STATE THIS ON THE PACKAGING IN PLAIN SIGHT?

What retailers inform the customer at time of purchase?

When a kid gets busted for shoplifting do they call the cops and say he was trying to illegally borrow the content on the discs?

@DoubleEcho:
touche

@Wombatish: Agreed. If it works like a DVR, then there shouldn't be any real problem with it. DVRs typically use DRM to encrypt the video stored on the hard drives. I'm convinced that what this really is about is CONTROL, not "piracy". They just want to control all the ways that people watch video, and don't like the idea of companies that aren't playing ball with them being able to come up with new and innovative ways for people to watch video.

@MustyBuckets: I think that might be the quote of the century.

@Sean Masters: Why shouldn't the first-sale doctrine apply to DVDs just like every other product? The only reason these industries get special "protection" is because of their corruption of the government.

In the meantime, I will happily continue ripping my DVDs to my external hard drive. I feel totally morally justified in doing so, and there is little way I could be caught doing it.

@johnva: That's pretty much what has prevented me from converting to Blu Ray. Too much of a pain to archive anything on my HTPC.

@Guvmint_Cheese: Yeah, that's the really stupid thing. They are shooting themselves in the foot by fighting against things like this that actually go to great lengths to PREVENT it being used as a tool of piracy. If they would just cooperate with external companies who want to make products like this, they could help people use their movies the way they want to, get some input into how the copy protection works, AND get some additional licensing revenues probably. But no, they try to stamp out all new technology that they don't control instead. The end result is that everyone just ends up using software that cracks their DRM to do what they want anyway.

@Corporate_guy: There's a good chance of that. And/or make it so that recording expire after a certain period of time.

@johnva: It does apply to DVDs. But first sale doctrine has nothing to do with fair use.

@rworne: They changed the CSS license to prevent any future Kalidescape episodes. The precedent set in that case is not going to be helpful for Real.

@johnva: It's not about copying. It's about the studios/distributors being able to decide exactly what people can and cannot do with their movies.

@TCama: Isn't that what I just said?

@PSN: kingpsyz: You know that FBI warning before the movie plays? That's it. It says you can only use it for personal viewing, no commercial viewings, no mass viewings, no copying, etc.

@Erwos: Sorry, you're correct. I was mixing up the terms.

@rworne: As Erwos said, the Kaleidescape episode only benefited Kaleidescape, and allows them to continue operating under the license THEY signed. Fortunately for them, they now basically have a monopoly on that technology because they're the only ones who can sell it due to changes in the CSS license.

@Sean Masters: Wait, which middleman? The companies that make the content own it; the artists are employees of those companies. Cutting out the special interest groups is one thing (one thing that I support fully). But you said you want the actors and writers unions to own the content, so that would be cutting out the companies too ...

@PSN: kingpsyz: Also, it's the law. The packaging (or retailers or whatever) doesn't have to remind you of the law.

@LionelEHutz: You're giving them ideas...quit it!

@mbnovik: I don't know if I'm lazy or stupid, but I tried to rip a DVD to my computer a few months ago and just gave up. I got to a certain point in the process and the thing just would not rip.

@MustyBuckets: Well said.

@PSN: kingpsyz:

The problem is we send nothing besides lawyers to Congress who know next to nothing about technology. (Judges too) They get "informed" from lobbyists from interests like the MPAA, who end up writing good portions of the legislation.

@TCama: Corruption is the only reason that it's the law. I have no moral qualms about breaking a law that doesn't hurt anyone else and restricts what I want to do for no reason that benefits society at large.

@DrGirlfriend: You need better software. Although I think Consumerist might frown on my pointing you to said software, so I'm not going to do it... ;)