Just would like to have a discussion on the topic. I’ve purchased around 20ish movies/shows on Vudu, and my wife has grown to be unhappy with Vudu’s UI and especially how the watch progress works. I am curious what some others thoughts on this are. My initial thoughts are I recognize I’ve purchased a license to watch the content, but feel that because I’ve purchased it I should have the right to retain total control over it and do what I please. I would like to purchase movies on physical media from now on, but wouldn’t like to repurchase all the same movies and shows again when I’ve already paid for them
In the US: you are legally allowed to have a backup copy of any media you have (digital -> physical, physical -> digital, or any other match up). Since you own the physical copy of these movies, this means you’re allowed to have the digital one as a backup.
Your physical disks are encrypted, and breaking said encryption to make a copy is technically illegal. Downloading the files from somewhere is not illegal, but sharing them is.
With all that said, if you own the disk, and either download or torrent without seeding, you’re well within your rights legally.
Your other option is to use Handbrake or another disk ripping software, along with dvdcss or aacs and rip your disks yourself.
https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html - for reference if anyone is curious.