Sticking It To The Man: A Tutorial

NOTE: This is not a "how-to". It's more of a "how-NOT-to". Don't do any of this stuff. I don't want to see you in copyright prison.

Now, I'd never encourage anyone to break the law. Heck, no...breaking the law is illegal. But let's just say that you have some DVDs that you want to make copies of...for backup purposes. Yeah, that's it. DVDs can get expensive and scratch easily. Wouldn't you want to make some perfectly legal copies of these movies that you already own?!?

Well, here's where it gets tricky. Although it's certainly legal to do so, many commercial DVDs have copy protection. If you put them in a standalone DVD recorder, they won't copy at all...and that's no fun. If you're wanting to back up a DVD, you need a computer with a recordable DVD drive. Now, the fancier the better, but as long as it's capable of writing to DVD+R or DVD-R discs you're in business. You can get a decent internal DVD burner for a PC for about $50 now, and a spindle of 50 blank DVDs is $15-20. I'm sure you can get all this stuff for a Mac, but I can't vouch for what it costs or how it works. Remember, Macs run on voodoo...so, you're on your own.

Now, a standard blank DVD holds about 4.7 gigabytes of data. There are other sizes available, such as DL discs that hold (and cost) more. You may also encounter RW discs, which hold exactly the same 4.7 gigs but can be rewritten over many times. These are also more expensive. For our purposes, you will only need the standard DVD recordables. The + and - designations are not as important as they used to be, as all modern DVD players can handle both kinds of discs.

But, back to the copy protection. So, you have the computer, the DVD recordable drive, and the blank DVDs. You're working with a Windows computer (the faster and the more memory the better). And you have the LEGALLY PURCHASED DVD that you want to copy. Now, it's not strictly legal to break copyright protection on a DVD...but remember, we're talking about backup copies of discs you already own, and nothing more. Anything else would be wrong, and I don't advocate doing any of the things I'm explicitly telling you how to do.

If you have the internet, you'll want to find a program called DVD Shrink. There are other programs that do the same job, but most of them cost money. And none of them are as easy to use. DVD Shrink is free, and once configured, it's a no-brainer. I can't tell you how to get it...I only know that it's out there, and a simple web search will turn up sites where you can get it. I do not believe that there is a home page, though there could be. Now, once you get the program and install it, you'll simply want to put the disc in your DVD drive. Open DVD Shrink, select the drive the DVD is in, and it will scan the disc. You'll be able to see the entire movie go by very, very quickly in a small box. Once it's analyzed (and this takes like a minute or less), you will have a list of options...you can save space by eliminating foreign language tracks, commentaries, anything you don't want. After you've made these selections you then backup the disc. Make sure that it's being backed up as an ISO file, and click OK. You will see the entire movie go by again in the same box, only a little slower. A full ISO file takes about 15-25 minutes for my computer to write. Once you have the ISO file finished, you can take the original disc out of the drive. The resulting ISO file will be about 4.7 gigs, just the right size to fit on a DVD recordable disc. But it's not perfect...nothing is. Some discs are so worn or scratched that DVD Shrink will never make a good file out of them. It shuts right down in the middle of things. It's a heartbreaker.

When I put a blank DVD into my recordable drive, Nero opens automatically. Nero (and other similar programs) all do the same thing: they burn files to discs. Burning an ISO file to a blank disc immediately creates a DVD disc that will play in virtually any player. It's really as simple as that. Not that you should do it, of course. You'll want to check the disc to make sure it works before you delete the original ISO file from your computer. Sometimes discs skip or have errors and you have to do it again. Not common, but it happens. And that's really all there is to it.

Now, the ability to copy DVDs brings with it a lot of responsibility. You must not abuse this power. You should never go to video stores, rent movies, and copy them. You must not join Netflix, Blockbuster Online, Green Cine, or any number of by-mail porn rental services and copy their movies. You should never scrounge through your family's DVDs and copy their movies. And finally, for Gosh's sake, you must not download tons of porn from the internet and burn it to DVDs using Nero to make an original MPEG file and then DVD Shrink to make an ISO file in this fashion. It's illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong.