Sysiphus

General Information

Sysiphus (also spelled Sisyphus) was a ring-based copy protection from the German OK Media Group and used mostly by games from the region from the late 90s to early 2010s. A DVD version also exist.

Identification

Discs will have either a single or 4 physical rings towards the end of the disc covering a total of ~1k-5k sectors. These are intersected by a single dummy file called ".pak"

Like most ringed DRMs its associated with a single plant. In this case an unknown, most likely German one using IFPI LL21 though not all discs with Sysiphus carry mastering SIDs.

Dumping

Follow the Ringed Disc Dumping Guide. Note that the edges of Sysiphus rings are very poorly defined. So more refining than usual is often needed.

Additional Information

If a disc is scanned as being protected with Sysiphus, but does not have rings, it is either remnants, or should be reported. Additionally, some (especially earlier) Sysiphus discs seem to be difficult or impossible to properly scan for protection.

Sysiphus has previously been incorrectly conflated with Ring PROTECH, an unrelated ring protection likely due to misunderstandings about Ring PROTECH being the name of a specific protection and not a generic term. As mentioned on that page, if you see a non-Japanese disc scanned or submitted with Ring PROTECH, it is likely not Ring PROTECH. In particular, all ring-protected copies of The Settlers III should have Sysiphus.