Recordable medium having a data recording area with an embedded non-recordable zone

An apparatus which forms a blank recordable medium, said medium comprising a plurality of concentric tracks arranged to form an addressable data recording area and a non-recordable zone embedded at one or more selected addresses within said data recording area configured to permit a recording operation to record data to said zone and to prevent successful readback of said data during a subsequent readback operation.

A method comprising:

• defining a disc authentication zone within an addressable data recording area of a first medium to correspond to a non-accessible zone embedded within an addressable data recording area of a second medium, the non-accessible zone configured to permit a recording operation to record data thereto and to prevent successful readback of said data therefrom;
• and
• writing disc authentication information to the disc authentication zone which identifies the first medium as an authorized copy such that a subsequent attempt to use the second medium to form a copy of the first medium results in an inability to retrieve the disc authentication information from the second medium.