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this post was submitted on 14 May 2024
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Buy physical media
If you are into collecting, that is. I am kind of triggered by the binary "physical vs. non-owned" because physical is not for everyone, if I was dead set on paying and the media was not available DRMless, I would rather buy a digital copy plus pirate a DRMless one corresponding to it. Buying a disk only to throw it out after ripping is wasteful. If you keep them, they take up too much space and are too inconvenient to use compared to a few external drives.
Eh, they're not that big, especially if you discard the cases and store them in a binder.
I would also rather buy digital, but in general, they're not available DRM-free. I can rip the DRM from physical media, so that's what I do. Pirating is technically illegal, even if I own license, so that's not something I'm interested in.
You're okay ripping DRM illegally, but "piracy" is a bridge too far. To copyright holders they're the same thing.
I'm not a lawyer, but I think there's a legal defense under the DMCA, here's the applicable part of the code:
Subparagraph C describes the process by which the Librarian of Congress reviews such exemptions, and specifically calls out non-profit and educational use.
AFAIK, this provision hasn't been tested for a regular home user making digital backups of their copy-protected media for non-infringing use. There's a plausible defense here: I can't use a DVD player on my phone, so this law restricts my ability to make non-infringing use of the material I own when traveling without access to a DVD player (AFAIK, those don't exist on planes or at campsites) or my physical DVD. So it's reasonable to use a digital copy so that I can do non-profit research with the content on disks I own.
To me, that seems like a reasonable interpretation of the exception under this provision, and I think it has a reasonable chance of being upheld in a court of law. I don't think it's ever been tried, because copyright owners don't care about people making backups, and they wouldn't want to set legal precedent about this either. This argument hinges on whether ripping for home use can be considered "educational purposes."
So yes, I'm okay with ripping DRM from a disk I own because I think there's a legitimate legal defense. There isn't a legitimate legal defense for piracy, at least not one I'm aware of.
This is what I think about people using VPNs to access content. You're still accessing it contrary to the license agreement, it's still piracy. Just download it instead of paying for a VPN company to advertise on YouTube.