I don't need to run that search, I own and have used Plex for years. I'm aware of what is completely legal, what is quasi-legal and what is most definitely not legal. What you're describing is deliberate circumvention of DRM, which is not technically legal. However, recording of content you personally own, whether to a tape or to a digital file is not illegal. It would be illegal to distribute that content, but not to record it. It's in the Terms of Use (TOU) where things could get a little "muddy".
So this is the point where I come to the realization that there is nothing to be gained by arguing this further. I am just going to end by using other people's words:
Relevant Wikipedia article on DMCA in the United States
Specifically:
In the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") has implemented the treaty provisions regarding the circumvention of some technological barriers to copying intellectual property.
Circumvention of Access Controls
Section 103 (17 U.S.C Sec. 1201(a)(1)) of the DMCA states:
No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
The Act defines what it means in Section 1201(a)(3):
(3) As used in this subsection—
(A) to "circumvent a technological measure" means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and
(B) a technological measure "effectively controls access to a work" if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.
Thus, if there is some "technological measure that effectively controls access to a work", it is illegal to circumvent that measure. However, Section 1201 creates several exceptions to this rule, and the Library of Congress is empowered to create additional exceptions.
That's the relevant section of the DMCA. If it's not clear, here is a more readable summary written by lawyers at the
Digital Media Law Project:
The DMCA prohibits circumventing access-control measures. 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1). For example, if you cannot watch a particular copyrighted DVD on your laptop because of an encryption system, the DMCA makes it unlawful for you to bypass this access-control measure. Access-control measures may also be found on eBooks, Internet streaming platforms, and password-protected sections of websites, among other things. Note that there is no ban on the act of circumventing copy-control measures, but it is illegal for anyone to provide you with the technological tools to do so. In any event, some copyright holders merge access-control and copy-control measures in the same DRM system, making it impossible to circumvent copy-controls (which is not prohibited) without circumventing access-controls (which is prohibited).
I feel like that is about as succinct and unambiguous as it could possibly be stated, and it specifically addresses the recording of "content you personally own." If you read all that and still feel that it's legal in the US to rip your own copyrighted content for personal use, there is nothing much I can say, except that that opinion would be going against essentially every legal interpretation of the DMCA to date.
Since you're apparently (mistakenly) sticking to this nonsense that Plex is "
a product that currently deals exclusively with ripped or pirated content", here are just two sources of
totally legal content (there are others if you care to search):
https://archive.org/details/moviesandfilms?&sort=-downloads&and[]=collection:"feature_films"
https://www.cnet.com/news/youtube-n...legally-blonde-and-more-free-movies-to-watch/
The two options listed above include download options. Additionally, as I implied initially, there are ways in which one could record video content to a digital file (not just from your own DVDs and Blu-Rays, but from streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, BBCA, and the like). To record legally requires a subscription, but it most certainly can be done. As for the provider's terms of service, that's another question altogether.
There are also digital storage services offered for your own content, such as Vudu. Assuming you've purchased the DVD, taken advantage of Vudu (paying for said service), you could arguably use a screen capture tool to record that content as you stream it - arguably legally (again, probably isn't cool with the Vudu TOU, but it is
not breaking any laws) - because you are "recording" content which you own.
Finally, don't forget that there are other options to acquire content which is wholly in the public domain and not subject to copyright laws. The archive.org site listed above is a good source for that.
You're right – if you stick to public domain content (which in the US is author's life + 70 years, so we're talking some seriously old video, for the most part), and things like your own family videos, there is definitely content out there that it is 100% legal to put on Plex. I'm sure this does make up some percentage of Plex content. I'm going to guess it is a very, very small percentage, but it is technically a thing.
Regarding those free YouTube movies: Not any more legal to put on Plex than ripped blu-rays, unfortunately. While most YouTube videos are not DRM-protected, these particular videos are. You can can check this with
youtube-dl, which will happily download any YouTube video except the protected ones. Here is the output when I did a dry-run of youtube-dl on one of the movies in YouTube's "free to watch" section:
Code:
youtube-dl -F WzlGrjph9u4
[youtube] WzlGrjph9u4: Downloading webpage
[youtube] WzlGrjph9u4: Downloading video info webpage
ERROR: This video is DRM protected.
