You may have gotten all the info you needed from the previous posters and also I might be a little late out right now...

Anyway, I have some info that I thought you and maybe someone else would be interested in.
The problem with xbox games is that they do not use the usual filesystem that a computer uses. It has a FS called XDFS (xbox something filesystem) and a standard pc can't read that.
Also most DVD-burners/readers can't read the original DVD-discs due to something special (dont remember what it was though). As an example of this I can take the Samsung drive that is very wanted on xbox (as it is the best and can read CD-R, DVD-/+R, DVD-/+RW and so on which most other readers cant do on the xbox). Well, you can buy a special Samsung drive, put in a special firmware on it and then it can read original xbox discs.
So with the usual firmware it cant read it.

And about the copyprotection used. There is not really a "protection". It is a bunch of files on the disc (dashupdate, and a few other .xbe files) that contains some code that will not be proper when copied. But this is easily fixed with various iso making tools for the xbox that will autopatch these files.
No physical thing on the discs. Simply a regular DVD with some stuff on it.

So the only way that I know of currently is to ftp from the xbox and then make an iso and then burn it.
Another easy way is to switch the hdd in the xbox to something in the 80gb and up so that you can (on the xbox of course) put the game on the hdd and then you won't need your discs anyway. You run them directly from the hdd.
You might already know this, but I am telling you in case you don't.

Hope that helps a bit atleast.
If there are any questions you can PM me and I will try to answer them.
Good Luck!