Earlier this month, Sony announced it would be ending production of physical discs by 2028. This is a devastating blow to anyone who can't download every video game they ever play, especially since Sony is shutting down some of its older digital storefronts. But it's also a blow to game archiving, which raises one very crucial question: can you rip and backup your own PlayStation discs?The technical answer to that question is a qualified “Yes, depending on how old your games are.” And the legal answer is “No, but it's probably fine anyway.” For that to make sense, we're gonna have to go through some complicated stuff, so let's start with the legal question.Is it legal to rip PlayStation discs?The rules for what's permissible will depend heavily on your region, but we'll focus on the U.S. (in other North American and European regions, the rules are somewhat similar). In the U.S., there are two general, paradoxical rules:
You have a right to make a backup copy of any media you own. Like, say, backing up a copy of your PlayStation discs.You are not allowed to circumvent any method meant to prevent copies on a piece of media. Like, say, the DRM on your PlayStation discs.Yes, this is mildly contradictory. It's a bit like saying you can read any book in the library, but only if the door to said library isn't locked—and the door is always locked. In theory, this means you only have the legal right to back up your media if the company you bought it from says you can.In practice, it's a bit less dire than all that. It's generally not easy (or good for public relations) to go after individuals for ripping a single disc. Instead, most legal fights will center around the tools themselves. Developing (or in some cases, even linking to) ripping tools can expose the people who make them to legal liability. There are gray areas, especially when it comes to game preservation.What that means for most people is that if your intention is to rip PlayStation discs so you can distribute copies to a bunch of other people, you could end up in legal trouble. However, if you want to make a backup copy for yourself just in case your existing disc dies, and Sony stops making more, you're probably safer. But you still take on that risk for yourself.Can you rip or burn PlayStation discs yourself?Whether it's possible to rip a PlayStation disc will depend heavily on which console you're talking about. In general, the older a console is, the longer archivists and other enthusiasts have been working on the problem, so the easier it's likely to be. Older devices tend to use simpler encryption, or well-known copy-protection mechanisms that are easier for modern users to circumvent. Since it's exactly that circumvention that can trip legal liability, that's also why you'll find fewer people and groups trying to do it for the latest console. It's not impossible, but likely to be harder and less accessible.In order to rip discs, you'll need a disc drive that can read your game, and which one you'll need will depend on which console generation it came from. The PS1 used CDs for its games (even though they looked a bit different, due to a custom black coating).PS2 games were split between CDs and DVDs.Starting with the PS3, and continuing with the PS4, both consoles utilized standard Blu-ray discs.Finally, the PS5 added support for higher-capacity Ultra HD Blu-ray discs.As you might be able to tell from this list, the right drive for a given console generation can range from trivially easy to find, to near impossible. Plenty of desktops and even laptops have DVD drives that can also read CDs. Blu-ray drives are a lot rarer, and there's a decent chance that the only UHD Blu-ray drive you've ever interacted with is the one in your PS5—unless you happen to have one of these.That only covers backing up the data on your disc in the first place. If you want to write it to another disc (a process called burning), you'll need a drive that doesn't just read those discs, but write them as well. In a lot of cases, these are the same—the drive linked above can both read and write Blu-rays and DVDs, for example—but if you want to burn your own discs, make sure you don't accidentally buy a read-only drive.Can my PlayStation play my backup discs?Making a backup disc of your games is one thing. This can be helpful for preservation, or for storing games you'll run in an emulator later. That doesn't mean you can just pop a burned disc into your old PlayStation and run them like normal, though.For the PS3 and older, you'll likely need to mod or at least softmod the console in order to play burned discs. This process can vary widely not just by console generation, but by specific models and even down to when the specific console was manufactured. Since copy protection is an arms race, sometimes newer models block decryption methods that worked on older devices, or, conversely, sometimes new models introduce flaws that can be exploited to jailbreak a console.Typically, the methods that modders use to jailbreak a console are security vulnerabilities, so the ones that can be patched via software updates will be. This means that even if you have a console from the right generation and manufacturing run, it could still end up impossible to crack open if it's been updated to newer software.
