Cepro.com has a news article  on the case of Real and their RealDVD copying software and the MPAA.  Basically, Real gave up the good fight and agreed to settle by paying the MPAA's legal fees ($4.5M).  For manufacturers of DVD ripping or copying hardware and software- the precedent has been set that it is illegal to offer such capability to consumers.

For consumers, it means that you still cannot buy nor likely ever will be able to buy a legal device or software for ripping your DVD and Blu-Ray collection to a hard drive.  So if you need to rip a DVD, just continue what you've been doing all along and get the software from offshore.  There doesn't seem to be any ruling on the use of it or the content that it rips.  Alternatively, skip the ripping and just get something like Boxee to watch online streaming and downloaded legal content.