MacTheRipper is a
Mac OS X application that enables users to create a playable copy of the contents of a
Video DVD
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-r ...
by defeating the
Content Scramble System. During this process it may optionally modify or disable the
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital rights management technique introduced in 1997. It is designed to allow rights holders to control the international distribution of a DVD release, including its content, release date, and price, all according to ...
or the
User operation prohibition
The user operation prohibition (abbreviated UOP) is a form of use restriction used on video DVD discs and Blu-ray discs. Most DVD players and Blu-ray players prohibit the viewer from performing a large majority of actions during sections of a DVD ...
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. Even documentation such as pricing (it's no longer free) and the FAQ are locked off.
Legal issues
Previous releases of MacTheRipper violated the
GNU General Public License (GPL) of the libdvdread and
libdvdcss software libraries, on which MacTheRipper is built. 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
he manufactureritself is violating the statute." In that case and others that followed it, the court found
the software manufacturer in violation of the
DMCA.
321 Studios Shuts Its Doors
Wired News article about the entertainment industry lawsuits that forced 321 Studios
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.
In February 2004, after a three-year legal battle with several of t ...
to shut down
See also
* DVD ripping: an article about extracting the content of DVD, CD, and Blu-ray discs
* HandBrake: a free open-source
Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...
transcoder application for converting DVD content into other formats
References
{{Reflist
External links
Official MacTheRipper Support ForumsMacTheRipper on MacUpdateDownload MacTheRipper 2.6.6What is MacTheRipper?
DVD rippers
Freeware
MacOS-only software