Well, I do hate them :P I've bought Bayonetta some time ago... at first, I wasn't going to buy it for 1 reason... I knew the save files were copy-protected... But I ended up buying it because it was cheap and I really wanted to play it.

Now that I have it, I've played it for around 39-40 hours, finished the game on Normal, Hard and Infinite climax, beat Angel Slayer (kind of like bloody palace in DMC), got the platinum trophy, got all platinum and pure platinum awards on Normal, beat a secret boss yesterday (don't want to spoil it for those who haven't played it yet) and I'm going to start playing on Hard again to get all platinum and pure platinum awards like I did on normal...

But I'm starting to get worried because if something happens to my PS3 I will lose ALL my progress :(

So... I started searching to see if there was any way to back-up a copy protected save file...

I know you can do a full system back-up to an external hard drive and I know it even copies the protected files... but you can only restore that back-up to the ORIGINAL PS3! :S... that means, if your PS3 gets the YLOD and you send it to Sony you'll get a refurb and won't be able to restore your data because it's a different PS3 :S so... even with a back-up, your copy-protected save files will be gone whenever your PS3 dies :(

You can also transfer everything on your PS3 with the data transfer utility... but all it does is move the files from one PS3 to another (I don't even have another PS3 anyways, lol)... so, all you'd be doing is lock the files to another PS3 and whenever that PS3 dies, your files die with it :P

I kind of started thinking of a way to back-up the copy protected save files... and came up with the following idea!

What if you had 2 PS3s and 1 external HDD and you did the following?

1- Back-up your copy-protected save files to your external HDD

2- Transfer everything from the PS3 with the copy-protected save files to the other PS3

3- Now that the original PS3 has nothing because it was all transfered, restore the back-up from the external HDD to your PS3 and that would leave you with 2 PS3s with a copy of your copy-protected save files, right?

Well, I thought it would work and even thought of not buying any new games to save money for another PS3 and an external HDD, lol xD

But then, I found this:

http://manuals.playstation.net/document/en/ps3/current/settings/backuputility.html

If you back up data on a PS3™ system and then transfer data to another PS3™ system using the data transfer utility, copy-prohibited saved data that is included in the backup data cannot be restored on either system.

So yeah... YOU CAN'T! xD

Maybe after the data is transered from one PS3 to another, your HDD is marked or something like that so that you can't restore the backed-up data to it... so maybe, if you get your HDD out of your PS3, connect it to your PC as a slave, format it completely and insert it back into your PS3, you could restore the back-up anyways... but I've searched and haven't found anyone who has tried that before...

Oh, today I was watching Resonance of Fate videos on youtube and saw some Star Ocean: The Last Hope International videos on the related videos section thing... I watched some vids and thought it was a cool game so I thought about getting it someday... and then, I searched on Google to see if the game had copy-protected save files and... yes, the save files are copy-protected ¬¬ I won't buy a JRPG with copy-protected save files ¬¬

Why the hell do they make the save files copy-protected?

Why don't they just lock the save files to the users PSN ID?

Don't you hate copy-protected save files? :P

Do you know of any way to back them up?

Sorry if my English sucks :P

Nope, no way to back up, sorry.

yup it sucks.

I like the idea of a PSN lock though - perhaps even cloud save at some point.

some devs are releasing or have released save unlocks like the Singstar devs (London Studios?) of the top of my head.

I hope more jump on the bandwagon because currently it's just a rediculous state of affairs :(

Yeah, I think Resident Evil 5 had copy protected save files when it was released but it was later patched to fix that.

Well... I guess I'll just have to asume the fact that I'll lose my copy protected save files some day... just like we all have to asume we will die someday :P

you can do the "Transfer data utility" it will copy your copyrighted saves, but also you need another PS3 and an ethernet cable.

edit: Lol it seems you already mentioned that, i'll check (i don't know if i own a game with copyright saves)

You have Heavy Rain, Star Ocean, Killzone 2 and Demon's Souls :P

The data transfer utility only moves the files from one PS3 to another, which means the files will be copy-protected on the new PS3 (and erased from the original one)... so, you're in the same situation, if that PS3 dies, your files will be gone, too.

The back-up utility doesn't work either because the back-up can only be restored to the PS3 that created it... and if it breaks, you won't be able to restore that back-up to any other PS3 :S I think the back-up is only useful if you need to format your HDD or something like that but not if your PS3 dies T_T

I've already asumed the inevitable fate... the only hope is that Sony lets us copy those files with a new firmware update that removes copy-protection... the idea has been posted on the PlayStation Blog Share

http://share.blog.us.playstation.com/ideas/2010/03/17/remove-copy-protection-from-game-save-files/

It's on the second page: http://share.blog.us.playstation.com/ideas/popular/page/2/

So... it's one of the most voted ideas... I hope they do something about it soon...

well i can tell you that those games worked after i transfered them over the utility , the first thing i did was play Heavy Rain with move, and i played demon's souls afterwards, so i can tell you that it DOES transfer copyrighted data.

That's exactly what I've said... it only transfers the data (moves it from 1 PS3 to another PS3) but it doesn't copy it (you still only have 1 PS3 with the copy-protected save data because it was only moved, not copied) :P

What I want to do is back-up my saved data like I do with every other game that doesn't have copy-protected save files just in case my PS3 breaks someday (the full system back-up copies the protected data, but it can only be restored to the PS3 that you backed-up so if that system dies, your back-up would be useless... and the data transfer utility only transfers the copy-protected and normal data... it can't be used to back-up the data because it's only moved from 1 PS3 to another PS3).

Maybe it's my sucky english xD

But whatever... I already know it's impossible T_T. Thanks anyways :P

It's all because of trophies. I hate trophies.

Yeah, but they could just lock the saves to your PSN-ID like they did with games like FFXIII... if you copy your FFXIII save files to another PS3, you can only load the file but can't save your progress or earn any trophies unless you log-in with your PSN-ID and activate that PS3 system... and you can only have 5 PS3 systems activated so no one would give their account info and their save files to another person and no one but you can earn trophies in the game...

I don't know why they just don't use that method instead of locking your save-files to your system :S

BRING BACK THE MEMORY CARDS, lol, just kidding xD