DVD Copy protection, how easy it’s to bypass…

Now, I have a 5 year old….  And that means, I really need to ensure that the DVD’s she can use are backed up…  But many discs are starting to use a relatively annoying but easily defeated copy protection…

This can be identified since the DVD’s are reporting that they have 99+ tracks…  So Handbrake and other packages really don’t have a way to identify which track is the real movie.  Why do I say real?  Because the other tracks consists of random scenes thrown together…

Here’s how to defeat it….

  1. Open the DVD in your software DVD player of choice.
  2. Start the main feature.
  3. From the “Go” menu in DVD Player.app or the “Playback” menu in VLC, take note of the current title, indicated with a tick mark.

Now here’s the sad part, do you know how much the studio’s are charged for this copy protection?  They license it from someone….

Think about it.  The DVD that you legally purchased, and simply want to make a backup of, or play on your iPod, or on your Linux box was probably $2-5 more expensive, because someone wants to make you start the DVD player and see the track number before you can RIP it…