The Tools You’ll Needįirst, you’re going to need something to read the discs, Macs have never officially supported Blu-rays anyway. With that said, let’s talk about tools and software.

With all that said, it is the personal opinion of this author that there is no ethical issues with ripping physical media to make digital copies so long as you maintain the first three tenets (you keep the physical copies, those physical copies are yours, and you’re keeping those copies for your household’s use) to the best of your ability.

As an example, this could allow a blind user to rip a copy to run it through a tool to add better descriptions or get around having to navigate clunky controls of bad disc menus. Generally speaking though encryption can be broken if it gets in the way of accessibility purposes. However, this is an exception for accessibility purposes, though these tend to get re-laid out every few years by the Librarian of Congress. DVD’s vary depending on whose making them, but some companies like Viacom do include some measures on their copies of media, who other ones (especially for home movies) don’t have these in place. This is where the sticking point is, especially for Blu-rays that have various forms of encryption. With all that said, under the current guidelines you are allowed to rip media and make digital backups so long as you keep the physical copies of the media (you can’t just rip them and them sell them off), the physical copies are legally yours (so no borrowing your friends movies and then giving them back), the copies can only be used by your household and not distributed, and you cannot break encryption to do this. Also, I am not a lawyer, so this is not legal advice. You should be aware of some caveats in this, mostly in the legality and ethics departments, so let’s get some things out of the way.įirst know that I can only speak from the American perspective, so you should check your national and local rules regarding such practices. Before you begin (legally and ethically): If you want to know how to rip a DVD to Mac, stay tuned to the site for next week. Let’s walk you through the process of ripping a Blu-ray. It might not be a bad idea to make a digital backup copy for yourself. Whatever the reason, you have physical media, but that’s just one copy. Perhaps they prefer the idea of owning the copy themselves and not having it pulled away due to a rights dispute, or perhaps they prefer the higher, consistent quality that physical media provides. While much of the world has embraced streaming, there are still many who have physical media.

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