Mac software for backing up DVDs

[dagza]

Don't panic! It's a genuine question

My son is scratching his pocoyo / finding nemo / toy story DVDs to bits and I can't be bothered to hunt around and download them and I really don't fancy buying them again so I figured I would create a backup and let him use those and keep the originals safe. This also made me think about my DVDs I use for school so it's not off topic ops: I should really take DVD-Rs into work and keep the originals safe at home.

Any thoughts on what software I would need? BTW It's an intel imac if that makes a difference.

Ta

Darren

[Geoff]

It's illegal to copy DVDs. Even for personal use.

[Ric_]

Surely it's legal to make a backup of the media?

It may be harder to prove that it is a backup though.

[indie]

The UK’s Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 makes it illegal to make copies of CDs, DVDs or videos – even for personal use.

When you buy a DVD, you dont own the material on it, you own a plastic disc, you are given permission by the copyright owner to watch the material and that is all.

In my opinion it's a load of crap, there should be a fair use clause in the copyright act, I'm sure im not the only one here who has paid £40 for a PS2 game only for the disc to get scratched.

[webman]

Common sense says we should be able to make backups, but unfortunately it's the people at the top who make these stupid laws that affect people like us.

[Geoff]

The 'fair use' you're thinking of does not exist outside of the USA.

[dezt]

I believe there's some software called roxio toast, I don't know if it will do a backup copy of a DVD but you could give it a try.

[indie]

Toast will only copy uncopyprotected DVD's such as data discs, it will not bypass the CSS copy protection on DVD's.

[webman]

I know this is in the Mac forum, but if you do have access to a Windows box at all, "you may not use DVDShrink to make a copy of the data stored on your circular bits of plastic. DVDDecrypter may not be used to help you."

[ChrisC]

I like it!!!

But it's a different kettle of fish for software though??

Chris

[webman]

With software I believe the issue lies with whatever license is provided with the software itself, but I could be wrong.

[Geoff]

I know this is in the Mac forum, but if you do have access to a Windows box at all, "you may not use DVDShrink to make a copy of the data stored on your circular bits of plastic. DVDDecrypter may not be used to help you."

The Linux equivalent would be DVD::RIP which you can run from a knoppix LiveCD.

[ChrisC]

don't you mean "you can't" run it from liveCD?

Chris

[HodgeHi]

Mac the ripper is what you need then toast it.

[CyberNerd]

does dd work on macs?

dd if=/dev/dvdrom of=/users/user/dvd.iso

not tried this myself.