Originally posted by maguire
If it was illegal the MPAA would have shut dvdcoverart.com down years ago!
Well, I'm not sure the MPAA would have much to do with it, as that is the rating system for movies, i.e. G, PG, R, R18 in the US.
The courts have already banned DVD X Copy from sale, after some of the big studios took action, and we know about Napster and the legal actions against people downloading stuff from Kazaa and the like, so who knows what could be targetted next?
It's obvious that sites such as dvdcoverart.com would be used for illegal purposes - where do you think all the covers come from for bootlegged DVDs? Cover art is copyrighted, the same as any other material, and as such, it must be illegal to reproduce DVD Covers without permission of the copyright holder.
I suppose you could argue that you are merely replacing already purchased covers, to fit alternative storage (I'm not suggesting you're bootlegging!), but it's still a grey area, and is probably as 'illegal' as is the 'backing up' of DVDs, even for your own use.