Most, if not all, of the newer standalone dvd recorders were forced to include this protection by the movie industry. They weakly complied without a fight. If you are lucky enough, like me , to have an older recorder like my Panny ES10 you don't have the problem. I record from HBO, SHO and ON Demand all the time. There are devices that will handle the protection like this video filter: http://home.cfl.rr.com/filter/
and others if you search