Burnout is a tiny software copy protection scanner for the Windows operating system that can identify more than 50 different copy protection schemes on disks.

The 50K application displays a basic interface that can be used to select a disk that is currently in one of the disk drives of the computer system. A click on the Scan button will scan the disk for copy protections and display the findings in the end. The language of the program can be changed in the interface to German, English, French or Italian. The options can also be used to add a Windows Explorer context menu entry so that it becomes easier to scan a disk, enable advanced scans of media and to scan files that are bigger than 15 Megabytes.

The copy protection scanner does not provide information about the protection it has found on the disk. It is up to the user to research it to find out if and how the disk can be copied.

Burnout requires the Microsoft .net Framework 2.0. The application can be downloaded from the project website over at Sourceforge.

Power Disk Lock is a free software program that provides access to another option. It looks a lot like one of those game copy protection schemes as it can add different kinds of data protection solutions to the disk. Some of the options provided include preventing that data is copied or extracted from the disk, to create large fake files and folders to increase the size of the disk, to add other extra data like bad or weak sectors or to detect disk emulation programs like CloneCD.

The program basically allows a user to create a disk image that includes several methods of protecting data on the disk. The main question that users have to ask themselves is about the effectiveness of the program. There usually is a way around those copy and data protection schemes and it won’t be different in this case. It will probably keep the average user puzzled and locked out but it is likely that experienced users find a way to overcome the protection.

Power Disk Lock is available at the developer’s website. No information on program compatibility are given. It seems to require the Microsoft .net Framework.

Companies seem to cling to those schemes although it has been proven that they are not helping fight software piracy. Games are usually available without copy protection on the Internet before or soon after they are released. This essentially means that someone downloading those games does not have to cope with installation limits and other copy protection schemes like CD checks while the people who bought the game do.

It was common in the past that customers had to call the game company or publisher if they reached their installation limit in order to have it reset so that they could install the game again.

EA, a company that made and is making heavy use of such copy protection schemes, has released a portable tool for Windows systems called EA De-Authorization Management Tool which will automatically scan a computer system for selected EA games and notify the user about the number of authorizations available.

The computer software program will recognize many of the latest games that have been released by EA. Among them Crysis Warhead, Read Alert 3, Fifa Manager 09, Fifa Soccer 09 and Mass Effect. A website will be loaded after the scan informing the user about the results of the scan.

The results will include links to de-authorization tools for supported EA games if they have been found on the computer system. Downloading those tools will then make it possible to free up a slot so that the game can be installed again.

Legit buyers have to activate games over the Internet, have to play with the DVD in drive and even uninstall software to make the game work on their systems.

Knowing which DVD copy protection was used on a game DVD can be helpful to determine if it makes sense buying or trying to copy the game. Talking about copying bought DVDs obviously.

A-Ray Scanner scans game DVDs and displays information about the DVD copy protection that has been used to “protect” the DVD. The software program is capable of identifying all the important DVD copy protections including SafeDisk, SecuRom or StarForce. A total of 26 different DVD copy protections can be identified by the application.

The software can scan a DVD that has been inserted into a DVD drive. It can also scan a folder on the PC’s hard drive. A-Ray Scanner will display information in the main interface if the game DVD is copy protected. If it is the protection that has been used will be listed as well.

The only aspect that is a little bit confusing is the menu structure. Since this is basically a free version of DVDFab Gold and Platinum not all options are accessible in the main menu. It is only possible to rip the DVD or HD movie to your hard disk removing all copy protection in the process or to uncheck certain elements, such as extra languages or trailers, on the disk before you do that.

The options should be your first stop before you start using DVDFab HD Decrypter. Make sure you change the temp and output directories if your c: drive does not have enough space to hold a full DVD or HD movie.

The Region Code is removed as well by default making the disk universally playable on all players. It seems however that this setting has to be changed in the options whenever a disk with a different region code is inserted. It was automatically set to region 2 and it did not change when I placed a region 1 disk in the drive.

Still no problem unless you have a lot of disks from different regions. DVDFab HD Decrypter is a great tool if you want to copy DVD or HD movies with or without copy protection. Please note that using this tool might be illegal in some countries.

Another limitation is the absence of a official linux version of iTunes giving all linux users no legal way of obtaining and playing back protected songs. QT Fair Use is a smart application that removes DRM from songs bought by iTunes leaving the tag of the user who bought it in the file. This makes it useless to try and spread the file on the internet afterwards because it would be to easy to find out which user purchased the songs and got the ball rolling in first place.

QT Fair Use can process all songs that are currently in the iTunes library at once making it an ideal tool for users that have a lot of songs that they bought from iTunes. A great feature is that the program works on Windows, Macintosh and most Linux distributions making it a highly flexible solution for most users.

Please note that it is illegal in some countries to duplicate copy protected DVD`s. Rip it 4 Me is able to cope with most copy protections and could be illegal in your country, use it at your own risk. Rip it 4 Me is a frontend for DVD Decrypter or DVD Shrink which adds ways to those programs to backup a DVD even though it is copy protected. You do need one of the two mentioned programs to be able to use Rip it 4 Me. You might also want to install FixVTS which allows you to adjust your DVD files into better DVD compliance.
The process of backing up a DVD is pretty simple after all the installations have been made. (If you don’t have DVD Decrypter or DVD Shrink installed use the Downloads menu in Rip it 4 Me to do so). Put a DVD into your disk drive and start Rip it 4 Me. Click on Wizard mode or 1-click mode.

You have to make some selections such as selecting a source and target hard drive and the ripping settings which give you the options to backup the full DVD, the movie only, movies and menus only or iso mode. Click on Create PSL file in the next window and rip DVD in the one after it.

If everything worked fine DVD Decrypter will start and state that it has imported the settings successfully. Click on the DVD to Hard Drive symbol in the lower left corner and the process should start. Take a look at the pictured Rip it 4 Me guide if you have further questions or encounter problems.

Music Retailers argue against the music industry which defends using copyrighted cds by claiming its to prevent the unauthorized duplication of their cds. They take the side of the customers seeing that customers get frustrated by copy protected cds and tend to buy less. Tim Baker of Sunrise Records, a large retailer in southern Ontario puts it this way : “This is just another really, really ridiculous way of telling our customers, We don’t want your business”.

I personally think its good for the customers if music retailers are finally speaking out against this and show the music industry that not only the customers but also the retailers don´t like this practice. Retailers of course have different reasons for this but it nevertheless is a valuable addition to the customers position. Its rather strange that the music industry on the one hand cries about reduced cd sales but on the other hand introduce more and more protection mechanisms that do nothing to stop people from copying their cds but stop the customers from buying them. This is ridiculous.

A lot of my friends stopped buying cds that have a copy protection sign on the case. I think many people don´t care about copy protection until they find out that they can´t copy a song from the cd to their newly bought MP3 player.

Nevertheless its good news that retailers are siding on this topic with their customers.

First 4 Internet, the technology partner already provided a patch to antivirus companies that will eliminate the copy-protection software’s ability to hide. Sony and BMG will also publish patches on the companies website allowing visitors to download the patches from there as well.

Update: The incident was first discovered by Sysinternals’ Mark Russinovich who analyzed the copy restrictions that Sony deployed on some of their CDs. He discovered that standard tools to remove the protection from the system would render Windows PCs unable to play music CDs.

Sony since then has admitted that the company used the technology on about 20 albums including discs from Vivian Green and The Bad Plus. The company noted further that the technology had been on the market for about eight months before it was discovered by the security expert.

The first version of the patch did not remote the date from affected Windows PCs, it merely made the data visible to all programs on the system. A second patch was issued soon thereafter that removed the rootkit component of XCP from Windows systems.

The patch is no longer available on the official Sony website or other websites. It is however unlikely that many users are still experiencing issues with the rootkit, considering that they would have to insert one of the original CDs into their computer’s drive with autorun enabled.