Intellectual property law sillyness

I tend to try to drive it into people's heads that ethical and legal are two separate matters, and while reading Slashdot a while back came across a comment whose author indicating that in his situation the two were in conflict. The commenter elaborates a little on the European legal system, and then concludes with a statement:

As a result of [the legal situation] ... it is illegal for me to watch movies from "copy-protected" DVDs that I bought and paid for, but it is legal to watch the same movies if I download them off the 'net for free.

I'm not a lawyer, nor have I looked at the laws referenced there, but such a situation indeed sounds plausible. The above is not the case with movies in Canada at the moment, but such a situation is a possiblity in the future.