Petteri Pyyny
8 Nov 2001 8:21
In last few months, there has been a real wave of new "commercial DVD rippers" to the markets. Various companies try to squeeze money out of this highly popular niche that is growing enormously. Getting good step-by-step guides or one-in-all packages has been a real problem in DVD ripping for beginners.
And it still is -- virtually all of these commercial tools are just lame front-ends for freeware tools. And what's most alarming, normally the freeware authors don't have a slightest idea that their tools have been used in these combos -- basically using freeware software in commercial product requires a permission from the freeware author, at least if they use any of the most common licensing agreements with their tools. Obviously, the problem is that most of the authors behind best DVD rippers like SmartRipper want to stay anonymous, because it's not clear yet if these tools are legal in U.S. at all.
I approve software houses that actually add real value to their packages by providing extended guides, certain GUIs that they've built, etc.. But all of the commercial vendors need to disclose what their packages contain and if they contain tools from other vendors, do they have permission to use those. And when speaking of guides and instructions -- normally DVD ripping sites like Digital-Digest and Doom9 offer enough information to begin your DVD backup process. Bad example of commercial DVD ripping product is from 321studio.com -- their site doesn't provide any information about the package, FAQ requires entering your email address (let's say it together: SPAM) and so on. Then in other hand there are some good vendors, like ExpertsGuide who actually seem to disclose more information about their package and market their product as a guide, not a DVD ripping tool.