Tom,
I share the same anger as you do.
By design a bit-by-bit copy to hard disk or DVD will render the copy
unplayable.
I guess it was meant to avoid piracy, punishing legal owners as usual (is
this an Universal constant?).
Luckily we have decrypters that allow you to do a legal backup or your legal
copy.
Another one that many in the USA are not aware: it is the "region" or "zone"
thingie.
The world is divided into 6 zones (or regions) and DVD's meant for one zone
won't play in a DVD or another zone.
Let's say I buy a zone 1 DVD in USA, that DVD cannot be played in a zone 4
DVD player (zone 4 is South America and I cannot recall the rest, maybe
Africa and/or Australia).
Luckily, again, we have "multizone" DVD players.
OSs have a built-in limitation on how many times you can change the zone.
Same applies to the DVD drives in PCs and the corresponding software players
(WinDVD, etc.).
Luckily, again, we have software that bypasses those limitations (AnyDVD,
etc.).
Happy playback!
Carlos