I got a pointer to a forthcoming program from Real, to be called RealDVD, that is supposed to be the first legal way to rip DVDs to hard disk. It's kind of that, kind of not.

Of course, we've had DVD rippers forever; the problem is that they're technically a no-no, since they tend to strip off the copy protection. The question of whether or not this is a legal backup copy of software you legally own is best left for another time. RealDVD leaves the copy controls in place by, effectively, locking your copy to the hard drive onto which it was burned. All the bits from the DVD platter are transferred, once, and no further. At 5G+ per burned copy it's still pretty huge and even with the plummeting prices of large thumb drives I can't see a whole lot of value here.

PC World previewed the program as well and didn't come away much more impressed than I.