Right off the bat we want to make one thing clear - we are NOT encouraging you to copy games that you do not own. The purpose is to help you make backups of your existing games. Making backups of your own discs is completely legal.

While these games come on a disc that looks a lot like your burnable CDs, they can't just be copied the same way you'd rip a music CD. It's a little more complicated than that. Here's a guide to tell you the basics of copying Wii games, as well as the circumstances when you should and shouldn't do it.

Your usual burning software can't copy your Wii games the same way you'd burn a CD. Roxio, Nero, and other popular burning programs just can't copy these disks. That's because there's encoded copy protection on the disk that keeps your computer from being able to make sense of it.

I remember trying this on my computer a few years ago. I figured if Roxio could burn a CD, it could burn a game right?

My efforts just left me frustrated as obviously it wasn't working for me.

Of course, like most copy protection, it didn't take long for someone to come up with a workaround. There are programs available that can read through the copy protection that comes on a Wii disc.

Once you've installed this kind of software, making a copy of the game is relatively easy - your computer is suddenly able to understand the data that was unreadable before. This is true for games on just about any system, including the PS3, Xbox 360, and the Wii.

By having the one program, you are able to make copies of games for all your systems if you own more than just the Wii. You don't need a seperate program for each one.

Even some PC games use encryption that can be broken by these programs. Should you own more than one game system, this software can help you produce backup copies for all of them, not just your Wii.

After you've found and installed a program to help you break the encryption, you'll need to copy the data on your game as a disk image. Once you have this disk image on your hard drive, all you need to do is put a blank DVD or CD into the drive, then instruct the program to burn the image to it.

The copying programs that are now available make it possible to copy Wii games without having to do anything but click a few buttons. Copying Wii games is a great way to make a backup copy of any game you want. It never hurts to have a backup in the case that the original gets lost or damaged. Enjoy!