MacTheRipper is a Mac OS X application that enables users to create a playable copy of the contents of a Video DVD by defeating the Content Scramble System. During this process it may optionally modify or disable the DVD region code or the User operation prohibition features of the copied data. The previous lack of an OS X equivalent to the PC software DVDShrink gave this standalone DVD ripper widespread popularity among Macintosh users.
The current public release is version 2.6.6. The latest version, v4.2.7, is available at the MTR-4 forum, which is accessible only after a registration with, and an approval from, an administrator. [1] Even documentation such as pricing (it's no longer free) and the FAQ are locked off.
Previous releases of MacTheRipper violated the GNU General Public License (GPL) of the libdvdread and libdvdcss software libraries, on which MacTheRipper is built. [2] [3] However, with MacTheRipper 4 and newer the libdvdread and libdvdcss libraries are distributed separately and must be installed separately for MacTheRipper to work.
The creation and distribution of MacTheRipper may violate the anti-circumvention laws which the U.S. and EU have adopted as part of the WIPO Copyright Treaty. In a case against the maker of a program similar to MacTheRipper, the court found that "the downstream uses of the software [...], whether legal or illegal, are not relevant to determining whether [the manufacturer] itself is violating the statute." [4] In that case and others that followed it, the court found the software manufacturer in violation of the DMCA. [5]
DeCSS is one of the first free computer programs capable of decrypting content on a commercially produced DVD video disc. Before the release of DeCSS free and open source operating systems could not play encrypted video DVDs.
A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to disk recording, portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders. Personal computers are often connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases the application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices; such devices may alternatively be referred to as personal video recorders (PVRs), particularly in Canada. Similar small devices with built-in displays and SSD support may be used for professional film or video production, as these recorders often do not have the limitations that built-in recorders in cameras have, offering wider codec support, the removal of recording time limitations and higher bitrates.
VLC media player is a free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC is available for desktop operating systems and mobile platforms, such as Android, iOS and iPadOS. VLC is also available on digital distribution platforms such as Apple's App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Store.
A home theater PC (HTPC) or media center computer is a convergent device that combines some or all the capabilities of a personal computer with a software application that focuses on video, photo, audio playback, and sometimes video recording functionality. Since the mid-2000s, other types of consumer electronics, including game consoles and dedicated media devices, have crossed over to manage video and music content. The term "media center" also refers to specialized application software designed to run on standard personal computers.
AnyDVD is a device driver for Microsoft Windows which allows decryption of DVDs on the fly, as well as targeted removal of copy preventions and user operation prohibitions (UOPs). With an upgrade, it will also do the same for HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. The AnyDVD program runs in the background, making discs unrestricted and region-free. In addition to removing digital restrictions, AnyDVD will also defeat Macrovision analog copy prevention. Analog prevention distorts the video signal to prevent high quality copying from the output. AnyDVD is also able to remove copy-prevention from audio CDs.
A Hackintosh is a computer that runs Apple's Macintosh operating system macOS on computer hardware not authorized for the purpose by Apple. This can also include running Macintosh software on hardware it is not originally authorized for. "Hackintoshing" began as a result of Apple's 2005 transition to Intel processors, away from PowerPC. Since 2005, many Mac computers have used the same x86-64 computer architecture as many other desktop PCs, laptops, and servers, meaning that in principle, the code making up macOS systems and software can be run on alternative platforms with minimal compatibility issues. Benefits cited for "Hackintoshing" can include cost, ease of repair and piecemeal upgrade, and freedom to use customized choices of components that are not available in the branded Apple products. macOS can also be run on several non-Apple virtualization platforms, although such systems are not usually described as Hackintoshes. Hackintosh laptops are sometimes referred to as "Hackbooks".
Extended Copy Protection (XCP) is a software package developed by the British company First 4 Internet and sold as a copy protection or digital rights management (DRM) scheme for Compact Discs. It was used on some CDs distributed by Sony BMG and sparked the 2005 Sony BMG CD copy protection scandal; in that context it is also known as the Sony rootkit.
K9Copy is a free and open-source DVD backup and DVD authoring program for Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and BSD. It is licensed under the GNU General Public License.
Doom9 is a website featuring information on digital audio and video manipulation and digital copyrights. It is also the forum username of the author of the page, an Austrian who was a college student at the time of the creation of the site. The site's tagline is "The Definitive DVD Backup Resource".
DVD X Copy is a consumer software program that enabled novice computer users to copy any DVD movie to any blank DVD. Most commercial DVD movies include Content Scrambling System (CSS), a copy-protection technology designed to prevent DVD movies from being copied. This controversial DVD copy software program included technology that decrypts the CSS copy protection mechanism on DVD movie discs. DVD X Copy products are still being sold on the DVD X Copy website, although it was previously believed to be no longer sold or supported.
321 Studios was a privately held company headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri with a sales office in Berkeley, California. The company was a provider of DVD authoring software.
MagiC is a third party and now open-sourced multitasking-capable TOS-compatible operating system for Atari computers, including some newer clone systems manufactured later. There are also variants that run as part of Mac and PC emulation environments, as well as on macOS Intel-Mac computers.
DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD discs. DVD-Video was the dominant consumer home video format in Asia, North America, Europe, and Australia in the 2000s until it was supplanted by the high-definition Blu-ray Disc. Discs using the DVD-Video specification require a DVD drive and an MPEG-2 decoder. Commercial DVD movies are encoded using a combination of MPEG-2 compressed video and audio of varying formats. Typically, the data rate for DVD movies ranges from 3 to 9.5 Mbit/s, and the bit rate is usually adaptive. DVD-Video was first available in Japan on November 1, 1996, followed by a release on March 24, 1997 in the United States—to line up with the 69th Academy Awards that same day.
The GNU General Public License is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general use and was originally written by the founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Richard Stallman, for the GNU Project. The license grants the recipients of a computer program the rights of the Free Software Definition. These GPL series are all copyleft licenses, which means that any derivative work must be distributed under the same or equivalent license terms. It is more restrictive than the Lesser General Public License and even further distinct from the more widely used permissive software licenses BSD, MIT, and Apache.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works. It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet. Passed on October 12, 1998, by a unanimous vote in the United States Senate and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on October 28, 1998, the DMCA amended Title 17 of the United States Code to extend the reach of copyright, while limiting the liability of the providers of online services for copyright infringement by their users.
RealNetworks, Inc. v. DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., 641 F. Supp. 2d 913 (2009), is a United States District Court case involving RealNetworks, the movie studios and DVD Copy Control Association regarding the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) claims on the manufacturing and distribution of RealDVD, and a breach of license agreement. The district court concluded that RealNetworks violated the anti-circumvention and anti-trafficking provisions of the DMCA when the DVD copying software RealDVD bypasses the copy protection technologies of DVD.
The App Store is a digital distribution platform for macOS apps, often referred to as Mac apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. The platform was announced on October 20, 2010, at Apple's "Back to the Mac" event. Apple began accepting app submissions from registered developers on November 3, 2010, in preparation for its launch.
321 Studios v. Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios, Inc., 307 F. Supp. 2d 1085, is a district court case brought by 321 Studios seeking declaratory judgment from the court that their DVD ripping software, i.e. DVD Copy Plus and DVD X Copy do not violate the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), or, in the alternative, that the DMCA is unconstitutional because Congress exceeded its enumerated powers, these provisions are unconstitutionally vague and/or violate the First Amendment.
Mac OS is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The Macintosh operating system is credited with having popularized the graphical user interface concept. It was included with every Macintosh that was sold during the era in which it was developed, and many updates to the system software were done in conjunction with the introduction of new Macintosh systems.