maineman, it is not a copy protected disc.

and I also just tried it in another player, which is telling me it is a PAL disc and it wants a NTSC disc. I guess Sony's way of saying that is to say it is "Playback prohibited by area limitations"

so now my question changes. How do I change this from a PAL disc to a NTSC disc, since apparently all of my DVD players can only play NTSC?