Here in France, as far as I know I have a right to private copy, which I pay for through a specific tax whenever I buy storage. I can rip my DVDs, Blu-rays, or even Nintendo Switch cartridges or hard drive, perfectly legally, even if it means cracking open the thing and circumvent stuff. It's awfully less convenient than downloading the stuff, but it is legal. Or at least it was 20 years ago, but I'm not aware of any change on that front.

Now there should be some ground rule. When you buy something, it's supposed to be yours, and you should be allowed to do what you want with it, especially studying it and sharing the results of your study. Any rule that allows some big corporation to retain power over something that's supposed to be yours is serious overreach and should be shut down.

Now Nintendo does have a big problem here: without the exclusivity of their form factor (which is arguably difficult to improve upon[1]), all they have left is the exclusivity of their game library.

[1]: https://loup-vaillant.fr/articles/ideal-computer

Same in Poland. Fully legal to make any copies of any stuff you own, even if it involves bypassing their encryption or whatever. 100% legal.

In Sweden it was like that, but after some prodding and patting by "market forces" on the politicians it's no longer legal, but the tax is still there.

> Here in France, as far as I know I have a right to private copy

Wrong :)

You have a right to a private copy, but you don't have a right to circumvent copy protections to get that private copy.

So ripping a DVD is still illegal, despite the tax.

We're getting screwed :)

> […] but you don't have a right to circumvent copy protections to get that private copy.

Since when? Do you remember which law? I don't recall anything like the DMCA being ported to French law.

> So ripping a DVD is still illegal, despite the tax.

I'm pretty sure it used to be legal.

> I'm pretty sure it used to be legal.

Only if it doesn't have the CSS thing, which most commercial ones have.

Even though it's a silly protection, it still counts as a "protection" legally.

It's like that in Italy so I suppose it's the same in france https://www.gianluigibonanomi.com/diritto-copiare/

Ah, found it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI

TL;DR: it's more complicated than I thought. First, the law was introduced in 2006, so before it, circumventing DRM and publishing how to do it was not a crime. (Of course, publishing copyrighted works with no proper authorisation was already a crime, regardless of DRM.)

Then for a brief time, circumventing DRM was outlawed. But fear of foreign monopolies (most notably Microsoft) and free software lobbying eventually had those articles amended, effectively exempting research and free software from any sanction. The exact limits of the current law are still fuzzy, but it seems pretty clear that using VLC to make copy of a DVD I own is 100% legal in France.

Ah that's cool.