CodeLok / CopyLok
General Information
CopyLok/CodeLok (both names were used) was a DRM made by the British company Pan Technologies Limited/PanLok Limited (again, both names were used). It was used by a few different publishers in the early 2000s though by far the biggest user was Take-Two Interactive and their various subsidiaries.
Identification
CopyLok can be hard to detect as the relevant files (".icd1", ".icd2" and ".icd0") are hidden inside the main executable of the game. DRM itself comes in two versions, with or without rings and both makes use of unreadable sectors that results in between 255-1868 C2 errors.
Dumping
"Standard" Copylok
Is very similar to dumping Safedisc protected games though unlike it, Plextors cannot sync properly through the errors and will damage the header of the following one. Resulting in twice the number of errors than what there should be.
For example, when dumping https://redump.info/disc/53929/ with ringless Copylok using either DIC or redumper and a Plextor drive, the error count is incorrectly reported as 1516, exactly double the correct 758 errors.
An incorrect _c2Error log looks as follows:
LBA[002312, 0x00908] Detected C2 error 380 bit
LBA[002313, 0x00909] Detected C2 error 20 bit
A correct _c2Error log looks as follows:
LBA[002312, 0x00908] Detected C2 error 300 bit
LBA[002322, 0x00912] Detected C2 error 300 bit
In addition. Redumper currently does not detect Copylok and will try and refine the C2. At the moment one has to dump it using the --retries=0 and --force-split parameters as well as either a drive running Omnidrive firmware or a TS-H353C
"Ringed" Copylok
Despite the name and physically looking like disc carries some, Copylok rings are not "true" rings as its possibly for a drive to track through them. They manifest as two errors with different C2 count following one another and a correct Redumper dump of these will look like this.
[LBA: 2316] C2 error (bits: 1354)
[LBA: 2317] C2 error (bits: 1022)
Only a handfull of drives are known to be able of handling this variation of the DRM. Most, including Plextor and Omnnidrive compatible drives will be totally unable to track and logs will instead look like this:
LBA: 2315] subcode desync (shift: -1)
[LBA: 2316] C2 error (bits: 440)
[LBA: 2317] C2 error (bits: 2088)
[LBA: 2326] C2 error (bits: 15
[LBA: 2327] C2 error (bits: 1481
[LBA: 2328] C2 error (bits: 1956
[LBA: 2342] C2 error (bits: 1022
[LBA: 2329] C2 error (bits: 308
[LBA: 2331] subcode desync (shift: -2)
[LBA: 2342] C2 error (bits: 608)
Currently, These discs have to be dumped a TS-H353C/SH-D163C drive running custom ZZ00 firmware or a TS-H353B/SH-D163B running modified Kreon firmware. Same Redumper parameters as standard Copylok will have to be used here aswell.
Extra notes
DRM is sometimes also known as CopyLock, but this more commonly refers to a different DRM used by floppies.