Removing copy protection from movies

There's a problem I have with removing copy protection from movies. It's not that I can't do it, or find it difficult to do. I do it all the time, in fact. But, there's an ethical problem that I have.

You see, there's copy protection for a reason. The reason is: people are awful.

Okay, I don't mean all people are awful. Obviously they aren't. I'm not awful. You're not awful. But there are a lot of people that are.

Awful people would, if they saw you drop a $100 bill, simply pick up the bill and keep walking. They know it's yours, but they don't care because they're awful. There's no different between that and not paying for a movie contrary to the owner's rights. They make up reasons to justify it, but the real reason is, they're awful.

Awful people are the reason it's difficult for decent people to have a proper library of movies. If you have DVDs, how to you add it to your streamer? You have to break copy protection, which is something that awful people do.

In the U.S., you have the right to have an archive of your movies you buy. You can add it to your streaming device for use in Plex or some similar setup, but you have to remove copy protection.

Now, you and I will use that capability to make legal copies and use them for our own private purposes. Awful people will use it to do wrong things. Even though I know my usage of software to break copy protection is legal, it bothers me.

If you're expecting me to recommend some copy protection removal software, I won't. I actually use a couple of different ones. I have a Mac that I use sometimes to remove copy protection from DVDs or iTunes. I also have a Windows device that I used for the same purpose. And, they are different software packages. They both work rather well for those purposes.

What about purchases from Amazon? Well, I have another software package I use for that. I'm not a great fan of it, but it does the job, just takes a little more work. I'm certainly not going to mention this package, because it also removes copy protection from Netflix, which is a no-no as far as I'm concerned. However, it's the best I've found for adding my Amazon purchases to my local library.

That piece of software kinda sums it up. Removing copy protection from Netflix movies, letting you download and keep them, is a violation of the agreement you enter into with Netflix when you subscribe to the service. I won't do that, even though I have the software. If I want the content to keep, I'll buy it. You'd do the same.

But those other people? No, they don't care about the same things you and I do. And that's why companies work so hard to copy protect their content. And that makes our Streaming Life more difficult,