The Bizzle, the DMCA says it's illegal to break the copyright protection on a DVD, but it's also legal to make back up copies. How your able to accomplish this without breaking the first rule is something the law makers haven't figured out yet, and is one of the reasons why the DMCA is bad legislation. In the end though there is the 'Fair Use' clause which can make activities which reuse media legitimate. Prooving Fair Use is at the moment cost prohibitive for most folks which is why there is a Free Culture community who are tryint to figure out ways to change the system. It is ok to reuse DVD material, there just are very few cases at the moment. One group currently getting away with DVD modification is http://www.cleanfilms.com/, these folks buy a DVD then edit out the stuff they don't like then rent the modified DVD to their registered members. Artisticly there is more merit in what happens here then what these folks do. Unfortuantely more people want to watch a movie without the word shit then see a film thematically altered. go figure... So that's a positive. This registered renting method is something this community could move towards.

There is also a campaign to revise copyright laws in the area of Orphanded Works. (http://eldred.cc/) "Orphan works are — broadly speaking — any copyrighted works where the rights holder is hard to find." The Holiday Special and maybe the OT could fall in this category. LFL/FOX will not distribute them anymore, so maybe they could somehow be considered part of the public domain. -s-t-r-e-t-c-h-

Money causes conflict. There are groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (http://www.eff.org/) who are combating these battles. If you want to support the evolution of laws in the digital age, these folks are someone to think about.
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