In 1999 This Was a Federal Crime. In 2026 the Hardware Is $22 and the Software Is Free. I went to rip a movie from my own DVD collection. It surfaced dead anti-piracy infrastructure, a defunct Japanese DRM company, and a twenty five year old executable that was still trying to phone home The Setup I just wanted to see if I could do it. The disc was Gladiator, a two-disc set that has been on my shelf for years. The plan was small, more curiosity than project: pull the disc into the computer, see.