Copy protection

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Copy protection, also known as content protection, copy prevention and copy restriction, describes measures to enforce copyright by preventing the reproduction of software, films, music, and other media.^[1]

Copy protection is most commonly found on videotapes, DVDs, Blu-ray discs, HD-DVDs, computer software discs, video game discs and cartridges, audio CDs and some VCDs. It also may be incorporated into digitally distributed versions of media and software.

Some methods of copy protection have also led to criticism because it caused inconvenience for paying consumers or secretly installed additional or unwanted software to detect copying activities on the consumer's computer. Making copy protection effective while protecting consumer rights remains a problem with media publication.