DVD region hacks. Piracy or not?

[apocrypha]

Since getting a PS3 we've got rid of our old DVD player. I can't find any way to circumvent the region coding for DVD's on it. Given that I have some region 1 DVD's, specifically the Alien quadrilogy box set, and I live in region 2, what are people's thoughts on the legality and/or morality of my various options?

1) I could rip the DVDs to avi's or something and stream them to the PS3. Pain in the arse and not legal anyway, right?
2) I could burn multi-region backup DVDs from them using backup software. Same as 1) really although I'm not sure about the legality of this.
3) I could just bittorrent the films. Probably the quickest & easiest option but definitely not legal.
4) I could buy them again locally, but given that I will buy them again anyway on bluray when they get released that's not gonna happen.
5) I could just not watch them. Not really a solution.

I mean region-coding is just a blight intended to ensure price differentials can be maintained, right? So surely nobody can have moral objections to circumventing it, but what about when there's no easy region-free hack for your DVD player?

[DraconianOne]

Region hacks aren't illegal nor breaking copyright. If they were, players wouldn't ship with the ability to watch multiple regions.

Given that the PS3 is cockblocking you and there's no easy way to patch it (according to you - others may offer a different opinion. I have no idea) I'd suggest either of your first two options. (I wouldn't encourage 3 because there's a whole dubious thing about encouraging the behaviour of ripping movies and sharing the files and I feel uncomfortable about that). No point in buying it again (even if it is available for not a lot of money atm).

Mind you, if you're able to rip them from DVD, presumably using a PC, what's stopping you watching them on the PC?

[Mrbloodworth]

what's stopping you watching them on the PC?

Or stopping you from streaming it to your PS3.

[UnSub]

I've used codes to de-regionalise DVD players before. The PS3 might have one somewhere.

[apocrypha]

Can't seem to make streaming to the PS3 from a DVD work, neither TVersity nor the PS3Mediaserver seem to want to do it.
Don't want to watch them on a PC because none of the PCs have a 40" screen with a sofa infront of it.
Have googled high, low, hard, soft and found no way of making the PS3 region-free, not even by putting linux on it ffs!

I'll do some investigating of DVD ripping then :)

[Samwise]

Under US law, I'm pretty sure all those options would be illegal, but given that you've paid a fair price for your DVDs I wouldn't consider any of them immoral.  Do whichever is easiest IMO.

I'd lean toward using Handbrake to rip them, with the PS3 presets, and either stream them from the PC or just stick them on a nice USB hard drive and connect that directly to the PS3.

[apocrypha]

Ah that sounds good. Doing a rip with something called "Magic DVD Ripper" atm... terrible, terrible name for a bit of software 

Will give Handbrake a go later, downloaded while I was typing this 

[CharlieMopps]

Do whatever is easiest until the music/movie/media industry stops doing stupid crap like putting region codes on DVDs.  I consider it my duty as a capitalist.

[apocrypha]

Well bugger me, ripping DVDs is a colossal pain in the arse. Region protection on the DVD drive in the PC. Region protection in Windows. Encrypted DVD. Trying to get a format that the PS3 will read. Jesus wept.

Fuck it, I'm downloading it. I'm being forced to break the law to watch my own DVD anyway and just torrenting it is about 100000000000000 times easier than all this crap.

[schild]

Well bugger me, ripping DVDs is a colossal pain in the arse. Region protection on the DVD drive in the PC. Region protection in Windows. Encrypted DVD. Trying to get a format that the PS3 will read. Jesus wept.

Fuck it, I'm downloading it. I'm being forced to break the law to watch my own DVD anyway and just torrenting it is about 100000000000000 times easier than all this crap.

DVD Decrypter should ignore the copy protection on the dvd rom and rip it to the harddrive as a full ISO and remove the Copy Protection. It's what I use to make copies of DVDs that I don't want to take the chance of scratching (OOP Criterion stuff and such), also limited foreign dvds.