Best Way to Image a Protected CD?

[TechLord]

I had a similar experience with a Video CD sometime back : I could play it on the computer AND on VCD players but I couldn't copy it...I tried to image it using various tools like Alcohol,Blindwrite etc but the images or the burnt CDs never worked. There was no special protection either immediately apparent by reading the directory on the CD etc.
Finally I found out that it was installing a driver in the background on the first run when played back on the computer, and this driver was extracting the relevant bytes from the .dat file and sending it to the media player, thus allowing the movie to play but not to allow copying directly.
The VCD players (set-top) merely ignored the irrelevant data in the .dat file and played the movie seamlessly.
Finally I could copy the movie by extracting using IsoBuster with the option "Extract but filter only M2F2 mpeg frames" , and then by re-burning it to another cd.

I would like to add a comment on this statement by evlncrn8:

sort of like you have a door with a lock, and a key, i then replace the lock... so the key you have is useless... clear?

I would like to think i slightly different way... You have a room whose door is locked by a lock and you have the key...But this particular locked room is behind another door locked by a lock but whose key you don't have...Unless you open BOTH the locks you can't enter the room...I can liken the outer lock to the security measures put onto the CD Media at the time of mass production, sometimes on an individual basis...
Our imagers are able to see and read upto the level of the inner lock but can't emulate the outer lock or open it...The running application is probably programmed to look for the outer lock and then open it first...
I know the analogy is not exact but it fits to a certain extent I think...