DVD media is susceptible to decay, which rots the disc over time and makes it unplayable. In order to make a backup of your disc (either to VHS or DVD/CDR or DivX file), you have to break the law, because the DMCA makes it illegal to circumvent the access-control systems that prevent this. It's also illegal to distribute tools that do this.
During the Betamax wars, when the VCR was ultimately legalized, Hollywood proposed replacing VCRs with something called a "Discovision," whose media was prone to decay and couldn't be written to. The idea was to force purchasers of prerecorded movies to buy the same films over and over again. Apparently, Hollywood got its wish: the DVD player, as crippled by license agreements and the DMCA.
Among those worst affected are video rental stores, which buy millions of DVDs per year.
"Some stores have reported they only get two or three rentals from a DVD before it's unplayable," said Ross Walden, director of the Australian Video Retailers Association.
Distributors "are washing their hands of it", he said. "Once a DVD has been rented out [distributors] will not take them back."
(via /.)
