GameCopyWorld

You don't need to be a software pirate to have a legitimate reason to want to make a personal backup copy of your expensive new game. And it's legal to make that copy, under the laws of most countries, as such copying is covered by "fair use" regulations. But these days, it doesn't matter whether you have a legal right to a copy or not, as manufacturers use increasingly sophisticated techniques to copy-protect their discs so that you can't do it.

And that's where gamecopyworld.com comes in. It offers guides to making personal backups, and ways to play your games without the original discs in your optical drives, and more. If you have kids, or you have older drives, you're likely to see some damage to your discs in fairly short order. And even newer drives can mark the surfaces of discs, so it makes good sense to keep your original copy nice and clean in its box.

This site has been around for about five years now, which shows how useful it has been. There's a great deal of information here, you'll know whether you need it or not.

LEGAL stuff: Depending on where you are, you may make a personal copy of a disc for your own use only. You must not make more than one copy, and should you sell, lose or otherwise dispose of the original disc, you must destroy the copy also. Programs that allow you to run a game without the disc in the drive are doing no more than a copy would so they should be ok. Often they will still require the key or serial number from the original in order to play, or they will need the original to have been fully installed at least once before they can be used. It is not the intention of this reviewer to encourage the use of anything beyond a single copy for personal use or the application of a single program to one computer again for personal use only. Neither may I condone the installation of pirated software which is then activated or enabled by another, illegal, application. So there.