I have a Philips DVD recorder and I want to record DVD's but it keeps telling me it is copyright protected is there a way to unprotect itwhat a waste of money
Sorry to be the bearer of BAD NEWS but making a copy of copyrighted material is ILLEGAL, and the DVD recorder is just insuring you do not inadvertently break the law. The entertainment industry got Congress to require this "feature" in DVD recorders. The thing is, the recorder senses a signal in the video stream and there is no way to remove the signal. However, there are devices out there, that "correct" video when making a copy. Sometimes these are called "video amplifiers". They were mainly used with video tapes, which degrade in quality when copied to another tape. So, these things fixed the degrading video problem, but at the same time defeated a copy protection method called CopyGuard. CopyGuard tweaked the horizontal and vertical sync signals so a digital tuner could not lock onto the signals, but an analog tuner could, which is why they played properly on any TV. Anyway, these things plugged into the video cable between the player and the recorder. You might look around and see if you can find one. I recently picked one up at a thrift store for pennies on the dollar. And I found out I can now copy my video tapes off to DVD's... YMMV...
Edit: One last thing, about your rights under copyright law, you can legally make a backup copy of ANYTHING that you OWN. You don't own a rented DVD, so no, you can not legally make a copy of anything rented or borrowed. You have to have paid for the original. Then, you can legally make a backup copy of any media that you own. The decision was made by the FCC in particular about games on floppy disk that had a copy protection scheme to prevent making a copy of the diskette. Some game manufacturers intentionally put laser holes in the floppy at known locations to introduce defects. They would check to see if the defects were in the right place and if not, refused to run the game. Anyway, there IS the exception to the rule. You CAN legally make a backup copy of ANYTHING that you own. However, if you sell or give away the original, the copy must go with the original or be destroyed, otherwise you are breaking the law by having a copy released into the wild separate from the original. There is software for your computer that will copy anything on a CD or DVD for the express purpose of making a backup. Do a search... Contrary to what another answered, it is NOT illegal to have software that can copy a copyrighted CD or DVD. The FCC is the ruling body here, which made the law which says you CAN backup your media without reservation.
According to the Ninth Circuit, it is not necessarily illegal to make a copy of a DVD you own, but it is certainly illegal for anyone to give you tools to do that, as a violation of the US copyright laws.
In fact, a violation under 17 USC 1201, copyright management, you could get you sued. § 1203.
Actually trafficking in the tools (for profit) would be a criminal violation, worth a $500,000 fine and up to 5 years in federal prison.