While copyright law allows customers to make backup copies of the media they buy, media like software CDs, movie DVDs, audio CDs, game console discs and the like. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act which was passed in 1998 in what I consider the single worst move of President Bill Clinton's two terms in office makes it illegal to break the copy protection that maybe on the media that prevents you from making the backup copy. Example, while by law you can backup any movie DVD's that you buy like say King Kong or Fantastic Four you can not however, break or remove the copy protection on these and other such discs so that you can make that backup.
Personally, I think this is a load of bull poop. Since the law that allows consumers to make backup copies (for their own personal use not for sharing with family and friends and not for selling) of the media they buy was in place first and was not eradicated when the DMCA was passed I have no problem doing whatever I have to do to backup my DVD movies, computer software, audio discs, game console discs, etc that are quite expensive and a rather large investment. I will continue to do this until the companies that put out these products start to offer free lifetime replacements for any disc or media that goes bad, which of course corporate greed these days will prevent from happening, so when it comes to backing up my media purchases to hell with the DMCA.
The next question is just how do you make a backup of a copy protected DVD movie? You can't simply put it in your computers DVD drive and do a disc copy. The copy protection prevents this. So what to do? It is quite simple really. You use AnyDVD and CloneDVD2.
AnyDVD is what we old DOS era users call a terminate and stay resident program. Meaning you load it up and all that you see indicating that it is up and running is a small icon in the Windows system tray on the start menu. In the days of DOS you didn't have this handy little indicator and had to remember that it was indeed loaded and running.
AnyDVD does one simple thing. As data from a copy protected DVD is read in to memory it strips away the copy protection. It doesn't read the data and it doesn't write the data it just removes the protection from the data. To read and write the data (aka make the actual backup copy of the DVD) you need a separate program. That is where CloneDVD2 comes in. It is however important to note that you don't have to use CloneDVD2 you can use any DVD copying program you want, something like Nero or Easy Media Creator, etc. That is one of the nice things about AnyDVD.
AnyDVD has some configuration options Screen Shot. Most of which I have to date never had to touch. I have not found a single disc that AnyDVD would not remove the copy protection from. SlySoft the publisher of AnyDVD do a very good job of keeping AnyDVD updated to handle any new copy protection variations that may come out on new discs, also point updates are free.
I have to say that I am very impressed with AnyDVD, how well it works and how easy it is to use. If you want to back up your DVD movies this is one of the programs you need to do that. I highly recommend it and feel it is worth the $49.00 price tag.
NOTE: You get a price break if you buy one or more of their products. For example AnyDVD and CloneDVD2 cost $68.00 when you buy them together saving you $20.00.
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