Just as a friendly reminder that it's illegal to copy commercial discs, and discussion of piracy is very much frowned upon on these forums.
That said, you'll often find good discussions about the technology, as long as it doesn't stray into specifics or puerile "nod and wink" stuff.
Popcorn is a compression/burning app, it won't (as you say) rip the discs, however, apps like Mac the Ripper or DVDxDV will rip DVD's to various formats, that can then be burnt onto other media (including DVD-r).
Wether they'll circumvent the newer copy-protection technology is not a subject I want to see discussed here, Copy protect is there to protect revenue, and that includes mine...
There are plenty of places on the 'net that'll discuss this openly, but MR ain't one of them.