Two Easy Ways to Break Copy Protection on DVDs for Free

When you buy an original movie DVD, you’re entitled to watch it anywhere you like, isn’t it? But unfortunately due to copy protection you can’t watch it on say, your tablet or smartphone, and might even have problems in playing it on some region locked players and optical disc drives. While the intentions of manufacturers are noble, that is to stop piracy, it often becomes troublesome for people to watch the movie they bought where and when they want. That’s why we’re going to tell you 2 easy ways to break copy protection on a DVD, for free! These simple solutions will let you make backups of copy protected discs so that they can be stored safely or watched later.

Break Copy Protection on discs for free:

Solution 1 – Using DVD43

DVD43 is not a software, but a plugin that gets installed in your system directory. It cannot work on it’s own and has to paired up with disc copying software like Nero Express, Roxio DVD Maker etc. But once installed, it automatically detects and breaks copy protection on any disc inserted. It’s quite hassle free, it runs in the background to automatically break copy protection so all you have to do is copy the DVD content and put it anywhere you like. DVD43 wasn’t compatible with Windows 8 for a while, but the newer version is, and it supports 64 bit operating systems as well.

You can download DVD43 from here, installation isn’t complicated either, everything is set to install in the correct places.

Solution 2 – Using VLC Media Player

While this isn’t technically a way to break copy protection, it lets you copy any movie, be it on a VCD, DVD or Blu-Ray disc and store it on your hard drive, free of any restrictions and with good quality. Insert the disc you want to make a copy of, open VLC Media Player, go to the View menu and check Advanced Controls. You should see a red dot button next to the usual controls. When you click on it and let the movie run, a copied video file is generated in the Videos folder of My Documents. The only downside is that you have to actually keep the movie on and running for it to record, and if you skip forward the skipped part won’t be recorded. It’s basically like a screen grab feature.

Another way to rip copy protected discs, albeit at lower quality with VLC Media Player is by doing the following:

1. Insert disc and open VLC Media Player.
2. Click Media>Convert/Save.
3. Select DVD as disc type and check “No Menus”, click Convert/Save.
4. Set destination and type file extension of choice (.mov or .mp4 etc).
5. Select H.264+AAC profile and click Start.

After you’ve followed the above steps, the ripping should start. Note that it might take a while. Once it’s done you will have a copy of the movie you wanted!

So those were the 2 ways to break copy protection on DVDs for free. There are also other software that let you do the same, but they’re not free. Some of the most popular DVD cloning/copying softwares are Alcohol 120%, AnyDVD, CloneDVD etc. Do let us know if you’ve got any suggestions and if you know of more ways to break copy protection on DVD’s, queries are welcome too!