Download DVD XCopy Platinum 4
DVD XCopy Platinum is a software package that makes it possible for DVD owner’s to make backup copies of “copy protected” commercial DVD’s. Anyone with a DVD read/write drive can make high quality back ups of commercial DVD’s, compressing the content to fit on a single recordable DVD with only a very small loss in quality, or to two DVD’s with no compression. XCopy quickly compresses commercial DVD’s (typically containing 7-8gb of data) to fit onto recordable DVD’s (which hold 4.7gb of data). I installed DVD XCopy Platinum on a 2.66 ghz Dell 4550 desktop PC with 4X DVD writer and about an hour later had a working backup of the first DVD I tried to copy.
Though most agree that its legal to make backup copies of software, music & video DVD’s, and audio CD’s that you own (“fair use”), circumventing an encryption scheme to make those backups may be in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). Some feel there is a risk of violating patents covering the encryption scheme. 321Studios, on one side, and several movie companies and Macrovision on the other side, are in court arguing over whether or not the different XCopy programs violate the DMCA, and whether or not this software violates Macrovision’s patents. Recently (March, 2004), courts required 321 Studios to stop producing this product, though a few stores have stocked copies that are still being sold. Hopefully DVD XCopy will survive in some form and the courts will eventually decide to allow users to make “fair use” copies of media they own. During the install and use of DVD XCopy, and during playback of copied DVD’s, 321 Studios’ makes it quite clear that the software is to be used only for copying DVD’s that you own. 321 Studios incorporates several “features” in their software and marketing plan that limits its usefulness for pirating DVD’s for resale, while leaving the software fairly easy for home users to be able back up DVD’s that they own. These features (taken from the 321 Studios’ website) include:
- An eight-second video warning, similar to the FBI warning found at the beginning of many DVD movies, alerting viewers of the backup copy that the DVD is not an original and is to be only used for non-commercial, personal use.
- An electronic watermark that can connect any backup copy made with DVDXCOPY back to the original point of purchase, allowing 321 Studios to remotely de-activate the software and prevent further misuse. At some time, its not clear to me how often, DVD X Copy checks with 321 Studios’ servers to determine if your license is still valid. If not, you won’t be able to make backups. This provides 321Studios a mechanism for limiting the use of DVDXCopy by bootleggers.
- An embedded bit flag that prevents users from making a copy of a copy using DVD X Copy.
- Not allowing users to copy DVD backups to their hard drive (though with the advent of small, faster centrino laptops with large hard drives and long battery life, and with hard drive based stand alone video players being introduced, I expect someone to release software that will do this)

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