I have actually downloading my DVD collection, saves me encoding and stuff - so is indeed legal.
I pay just £20 a month for unlimited downloads.
Paying your internet connection fees doesn't make it's use legal though. Downloading copyrighted material from torrent sites simply isn't legal.
In fact, to be honest, in a court they would probably say you should simply use your physical DVDs or make copies.
I'm not even sure if 'ripping a DVD' so you can transfer the contents onto a hard drive is technically legal.
With the whole new legal approach of interpreting copyrights as 'licenses', not 'ownership of a physical product', I think more often than not it's not allowed actually.
