Game Copy Software at BurnWorld - Copy PS2 game, Copy X Box games, and PC games

Game Copy Software - What is it and what types of Copy Preventions are used?

Software for Game Backup / Copying

NEW - Game Copy Wizard - How to Copy your XBox 360 games
NEW for Summer 2009 - Game Copy Wizard 2.3 Game Copy Wizard is a better and easier way for you to completely backup any Video Games. Completely unlike anything our competitors are offering, it allows you to make quality backups of your games using a CD or DVD burner. [ More Info ] [ Buy Now ] [ $29.95 ] [Win Vista, XP, 2000, 98 ]

CloneCD - First copying software that uses RAW-Mode

CloneCD -

CloneCD backs up your music, data or navigation CDs, regardless of copy protection.

CloneCD also works with other formats such as ISO and UDF files and copies CDs/DVDs with the new SafeDisc 3 Copy Protection System. CloneCD allows you to create perfect 1:1 copies of your valuable original compact discs. Should your copy-protected music CD not play in your car audio, the backup created by CloneCD will.

[More Info ] [ Buy Now ] [ $39 ]

BlindWrite 6 - Copy any Game Discs

Blindwrite Suite is an allround set for your personal CD and Game backups. It consists of two seperate tools, Blindread and Blindwrite. Use Blindread to create image files of your CDs, which can be burned with Blindwrite or mounted as a virtual drive (with Daemon Tools for example). Blindwrite does not only write images created by Blindread, but also ISO and BIN/CUE files. Moreover, you can create audio CDs from several audio file formats, such as MP3, Ogg Vorbis, WMA, Monkey's Audio or Wave.
If you backup a CD which is already known, Internet Live Assistance can help you choosing the correct read and write parameters to avoid coasters. If you need to abort a CD reading process, you can resume it anytime, as long as you don't delete the partial image file.
[Download Demo ] [More Info] [ $19.99 ]

Game Copy Pro

NEW! Game Copy Pro 2.73!

Are you tired of scratching or losing your favorite video games?

Game Copy Pro provides full information on how to make backup copies of virtually every video game! You can copy your favorite video games with nothing more than a CD burner or DVD burner and your home computer. There's no need to invest hundreds of dollars in replacing lost or damaged game discs.

[More Info ] [ Buy Now ] [ $29.95 ]

If you want to backup a copy of your original CD-ROM games, here are some rules you should keep in mind:

You can legally make a personal backup copy of a game if it is the original game and you are the original owner of the game.

Check the printed material that comes with the game before making a personal backup copy, as there may be special stipulations associated with that particular game

You cannot rent, sell or give away backup copies of copyrighted games.

If you don't legally own the original game anymore, you must destroy any backup copies of that game.

BurnWorld is not responsible for any illegal activities or misuse of information provided on this site. BurnWorld is also not responsible for information or illegal activities connected to information provided by other sites linked to by this website.

Copy prevention for computer software
Copy prevention for early home computer software, especially for games, started a long cat-and-mouse struggle between publishers and crackers. Programmers who as a hobby would defeat copy prevention on software often add their alias to the title screen, and then distribute the cracked product to the network of warez BBSes or Internet sites that specialized in distributing unauthorized copies of software.

Software copy prevention schemes for early computers such as the Apple II and Commodore 64 computers depended on precise knowledge of what exactly would happen if that hardware were forced to do something unusual, such as to read a disk sector that was unformatted, or to take just a few microseconds longer than necessary when instructing the floppy disk drive arm motor to move. This sort of physical copy prevention continues today on software shipped on CD-ROM, with companies like Macrovision and Sony providing copy prevention schemes that work by writing data to places on the CD-ROM where a CD-R drive cannot normally write. Such a scheme has been used for the Sony PlayStation and cannot be circumvented easily without the use of a modchip.

For software publishers, a less expensive method of copy prevention is to write the software so that it requires some evidence from the user that they have actually purchased the software, usually by asking a question that only a user with a software manual could answer (for example, "What is the 4th word on the 6th line of page 37?"). This approach can be defeated by users who have the patience to copy the manual with a photocopier, and it also suffers from BTO vulnerability, so that once crackers circumvent the copy prevention on a piece of software, the resulting cracked product is more convenient than the original software, creating a disincentive to buying an original. As a result, user-interactive copy prevention of this kind has mostly disappeared.

Other stware copy prevention techniques include:

A dongle, a piece of hardware that must be plugged into the computer to run the software. This adds extra cost for the software publisher, so dongles are uncommon for games and are found mostly in high-end software packages costing several thousand dollars.
Registration key, one single registration key that is "hard-coded" into the program's source that is asked for when running the program.
Name & Serial, a name and serial number that is usually given to the user at the purchase of the software and is almost always required to install it. The serial number is generated based upon the name given.
Keyfile, which requires the user to have a keyfile in the same directory as the program is installed to run it.
Serial, the program has an algorithm that allows multiple serial numbers to be entered in. Usually asks for the serial at installation or while running the program.
Nag screens, annoying messages that appear during or at the start of the program telling the user to register the program.
Time limit, allows user to use the software for x number of days before they have to register the program.
Use limit, allows user to use the software for x number of times before they have to reigster the program.
Crippleware, some functions may be disabled until the user registers the program.
A phone activation code, which requires the user to call a number and register the product to receive a computer-specific serial number.
Internet product activation, which requires the user to connect to the Internet and type in a serial number so the software can "call home" and notify the manufacturer who has installed the software and where, and prevent other users from installing the software if they attempt to use the same serial number.
The two latter methods imply tying the software installation to a specific machine by noting some particular unique feature of the machine. Some machines have a serial number in ROM, while others do not, and so some other metric, such as the date and time (to the second) of initialisation of the hard disk can be used. On machines with Ethernet cards, the MAC address, which is unique and factory-assigned, is a popular surrogate for a machine serial number (however, this address is programmable on modern cards). The problem with these sorts of schemes are that they can cause problems for a validly licensed user who upgrades to a new machine or reinstalls the software having reinitialised the disk, though some Internet product activation products can allow replacement copies to be issued to registered users or multiple copies to the same licensee. Like other software, copy-prevention software not infrequently contains bugs, whose effect may be to deny access to validly licensed users. As with all similar schemes, they are often easy to crack, and the resulting cracked software is perceived as being more valuable than the uncracked version.

There is also the tool of software blacklisting that is used to enhance certain copy prevention schemes.

Copy prevention for old games
During the 80's and 90's, pre-CD computer games were usually protected with a user-interactive method that demanded the user to have the original package or an item of it, like the manual. Copy protection was activated not at the installation, but every time the game was executed.

Sometimes, the code was needed not at the execution, but in a later point (or points) of the game. This helped the gamer to experience the game (eg. in demonstrations) before buying it, and also made sure that the gamer didn't borrow the manual.

Usually imaginative and creative methods have been employed, in order to be both fun and hard to copy. These include.

The most common method ("What is the Ath word on the Bth line of page C?") was often used at the beginning of each game session, but for abovementioned reasons it was abandoned.
Manual containing information and hints vital to the completion of the game, like answers to riddles (Conquests of Camelot, King's Quest 6), recipes of spells (King's Quest 3), maze guides etc.
Some sort of code with symbols, not existing on the keyboard or the ASCII code. This code was arranged in a grid, and was needed to be entered via a virtual keyboard at the request "What is the code at line X row Y?". These tables were printed in dark paper (Maniac Mansion), or were visible only through a red transparent layer (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), so that it was impossible to photocopy.
Monkey Island offered one of the most imaginative protection keys: a rotating wheel with halves of pirate's faces. The game showed a face composed of two different parts and asked when this pirate was hanged on a certain island. The player then had to match the faces on the wheel, and enter the year number that appeared on the island-respective hole.

Superior Soccer had no outward signs of copy protection, but if it decided it was illegally copied, it would make the soccer ball in the game invisible, thus making it impossible to play the game.
Not exactly a protection, but the game companies used to offer goodies with the package, like funny manuals, posters, or fictional documentation concerning the game (eg. the Grail Diary for Indiana Jones or a police cadet notebook with Police Quest) in order to convince the gamers to buy the package.