The legal position surrounding DVD backup software is murky, but do the applications
themselves work? We test four of the best.No doubt you've been flooded in the past year with e-mail and advertisements touting a "remarkable" piece of software that backs up commercial DVD movies to CD or even to another DVD. Curious? Considering the murky legal issues, you should also be cautious. We'll discuss the issues and the products.
The situation with DVD copying in Australia is extremely murky; while many people presume that fair use under copyright law would entitle them to make backup copies of DVDs that they personally own, this isn't entirely clear, and as yet there are few test cases to fall back upon. Many people look to US law, which does have more test cases, but there the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) says it's illegal to break the copy protection employed by the vast majority of commercial DVD movies.
What does that mean? Most fair-use advocates say that the policy directly contradicts U.S. copyright laws, but for now, it does seem to indicate that you cannot make a copy of a DVD, even for personal use, and you certainly cannot give a copied DVD to anyone or watch copied DVD files on your computer. We assume that fair use will eventually catch up and be established as a safety valve for consumers (which has been the pattern with previous technologies, such as VHS), but for now, the territory is undefined and a bit dangerous.
Nevertheless, commercial products aimed at DVD copying continue to appear. They range from packaged versions of freely available apps (such as 321 Studios' DVD Copy Plus), to toe-the-line commercial copying utilities such as DVD X Copy. We've reviewed four choices here; read on to see which is safest and easiest for your copying needs.
InterVideo
DVD Copy
DVD Copy is one of the fastest and easiest-to-use DVD-copying programs on the
market.
DVD
X Copy
DVD X Copy is the only commercially available application that can make perfect
backups of even copy-protected DVD movies.
Pinnacle
InstantCopy
Despite a few growing pains, Pinnacle InstantCopy is a flexible, friendly tool
for copying most types of DVDs and CDs.
DVD
Copy Plus
For those without a DVD burner, DVD Copy Plus's excellent tutorials make copying
DVDs to CDs easy, even for novices.
6%
2%
i have tried dvd copy programs with no luck. smart dvd cd burner,dvd rip n burn and others!running amd2600 512meg ram xp home!