Does EAC remove Copy Protection from CDs ?

[Seeker47]

All of it, and how well ? Automatically, or are some User Settings required ?

I know that it can make very good safety copies, and it has become my tool of choice for that, but I don't know if it simply does this by faithfully reproducing any deliberate errors or funky stuff introduced by the CP.

I have a pretty good idea of what the video rippers can do in this regard, but am uncertain in regard to music CDs.

If EAC does not cover this, can anyone recommend other tools that do.

[jman98]

Yes, it removes copy protection, but I have a CD from Spain and EAC was completely unable to allow me to copy the first track on the CD. I was eventually able to copy it by recording it through analog means using an old minidisc recorder. You may have to set a few things in EAC, but the defaults may work OK for most people. I would say that it removes copy protection well, but like I said, I did find a disc that it couldn't completely handle. That was highly unusual and while I don't use EAC a lot, that's the only disc I've ever found that it couldn't completely handle.

[hech54]

EAC's message board doesn't allow mentioning removing copy protections....so I'm not completely convinced it removes or circumvents anything like that.

[piano632]

EAC will correct the "errors" on copy-protected CD's if you use "secure mode". jman98, I think the CD you had was probably a defective pressing with unrecoverable errors. I've had a couple like that where no drive or ripper could read it correctly without reporting errors. But it's not copy protection, just a defect in the pressing.

The only CD I've really had trouble copying was one CD-Extra. The music tracks copied fine, but one of the data files reports a size of 300MB which is way larger than it really is and I get an error trying to copy it. I don't know how they managed that one.

[MOVIEGEEK]

IsoBuster is also excellent on copy-protected or damaged CD's.
BTW..some copy-protected CD's install software on your PC so you should disable Autorun or hold the Ctrl key when inserting.
Another option is to use CDex and select "Paranoia,Full":