Lawyers for Paramount and 20th Century Fox have filed for an injunction in the US District Court in New York to prevent five firms from selling the software.

In a separate case in San Francisco, Sony, Warners, Universal, Disney, MGM and others have mounted a similar lawsuit arguing that another US company's software violates copyright law.

The cases centre on the issue of whether selling DVD copying software is illegal under the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The companies selling the software insist it is legal under "fair use" provisions of US copyright law.

But the studios argue that billions of dollars in lost future revenues could be at stake.

They are worried that perfect digital copies of movies made on DVD will end up on the internet for free downloading.

Russell Frackman, a lawyer representing the studios, said: "This is not a lawsuit against consumers or about copyright infringement.

"It is a lawsuit about a company that traffics in an illegal product."

The New York lawsuit names Internet Enterprises Inc, RDestiny LLC, HowtocopyDVDs.com, DVDBackupbuddy.com and DVDSqueeze.com as defendants.

The San Francisco case involves St Louis-based 321 Studios.

The company says people have the right to copy DVDs for personal use in case their DVDs are lost or damaged.

It says teachers use its software to copy parts of a DVD for presentations to classes or seminars.

The cases are continuing.

BBC NEWS

Why dont they just lower the price off DVD's and people wouldnt feel they need to go this far. oh i forgot these companys need huge profits

Dvd x copy. Get your copy while you can.

I heard on the local news over here in LA that DISNEY was developing a DVD that if you rented it, you didn't have to return it.

Apparently the DVD has some kind of wierd chemical that after 3 Days it renders it useless...

The news said this "The DVD destroys itself affter 3 days so a DVD pirate can't copy it afterwards".

I'm serious.

What the fuck makes them THINK that BEFORE 3 days a DVD "Pirate" won't copy it?...man! What about the REGULAR DVD's. THose can be bought and copied...without self destructing after 3 days.

Also, DISNEY is then not an environmental friendly company...think of aaall the effed up DVD/CD plastic in landfills from these "disposable" DVD's.

I'm telling you, the corporate world THINKS of only one thing, their revvenue.

But they always disguise it in "oh we're helping the artists" bullshit.

And really now, a digital copy of a DVD would be HUUUGE file on your computer, and to download that would take a few days, please.