>Is it pirated if you already own a legally valid license?

I imagine it depends on who you talk to. If you talk to the company lawyers, they'll say it's illegal and you need to pay up. If you talk to a different lawyer that believes in better IP rights, they'll tell you it's not illegal but hasn't been tested in a court of law.

Ultimately, the only way to know if something is illegal, in the US, is to do the possibly-illegal act, then get yourself sued for it (or worse, arrested, since some IP violations can be prosecuted criminally), so that it can be decided in a court of law whether it's actually illegal or not. Once a court precedent has been set, then we know if something is truly illegal or not. Though this can change if another case ends up with the court (usually a higher court) throwing out the precedent.

Feels like there should be a precedent along these lines by now. Do these cases get settled so commonly that none covering this type of case have been ruled on yet?

There have been multiple. It is considered illegal**

** This is here to point out that it being illegal can be interpreted in multiple ways. Some steps of the process have not been covered. Like "is writing everywhere that i allow you to buy a thing or possess it but only give you a temporary licence to play it under TOS and EULA that you cannot physically read legal?"

What constitutes this "type of case" and are you confident a judge won't create a new distinction separating this one from previous ones?

The most famous case decided in consumers' favor was about recording tapes from TV broadcasts to watch at a different time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Corp._of_America_v._Uni....

You can make the argument that any precedent might not apply to a new case due to a distinction being made. The nature of precedents seems to be that they are a set of basic facts, a judgement, and only a guide as to how future cases might be considered. Of course every case is unique in some ways that may or may not matter.

> How about rips of blu-rays you own, which you solely use and do not intend to share? Is that pirating or using your legally owned product on a different medium?

This is protected fair use. But distributing software to decrypt DVD DRM is illegal.

Not sure if DeCSS is still illegal but the OP was talking about blu-rays and they are ... "less hacked".

"using your legally owned product on a different medium" You're refering to format shifting[1]. Legality will vary differently between jurisdictions, but there are rulings in the UK making it illegal for personal use so there's that.

Ripping blu-rays, most likely means getting around AACS which is probably illegal under DMCA. See 17 U.S. Code § 1201 and some rulings[2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Format_shifting [2] https://www.copyright.gov/1201/2018/

In the US, circumventing DRM includes "avoid" and "bypass", so I'd guess it does violate this: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 (though I wouldn't call it pirating).