I believe there are legal warnings on rented DVDs that prohibit copying. One can always rationalize it by saying, “That is a dumb law. I know better.” I humbly submit, however, that it is still illegal...and the basic human motivation is still “I want free stuff!”
All true, but "recording" is different from "copying" and the old VHS legal standard still applies, doesn't it? How else is TIVO legal?
Those warnings are lying to you by ommission. Prior to 1998 you could copy DVDs under the Fair Use exeptions of copyright. After a recent Library of Congress decision, teachers can legally copy portions of DVDs for educational use. In either case it's not the copying that was necessarily illegal, just the breaking of the encryption on the DVD was made illegal so that it became illegal for us to exercise our Fair Use rights.
Basically, it's all industry-purchased laws and scare tactics. This all used to be a civil issue between a producer and the copyright violator. Now the industry players have pawned off protection of their profits onto the taxpayer through the congresscritters they purchased.