Homemade DVD is Copyrighted!?! HORRIBLE REVOLTING DEVELOPMENT!!!

Question

To recap the agony which has consumed my life for the last four months, using iMovie 3.0.3 in my Macintosh G4, with extreme effort I assembled some titles and outtakes for a movie otherwise to be entirely dubbed directly from my Sony 8mm camcorder to VHS tape. The reason being, such gallons of blood, toil, sweat, and tears were expended for the relatively short amount of footage edited in iMovie under NO CONDITION was I going to try to edit ANYTHING CLOSE to the entire four hours, at least not in iMovie 3.0.3. By the time I finished, I had run into so many bugs in iMovie 3.0.3 I resolved to buy the latest version of iMovie before I'm ready to edit anything again.
The footage from my video camera was transferred to iMovie using a Canopus ADVC 110 converter, edited in iMovie, then burned to DVD using Toast 7 Titanium version 7.0.2 and a LaCie 16x4x16x Double Layer FireWire burner. http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10311
So far, so good, I had a DVD, but then I learned the player I had would play a DVD OR record a VHS tape but NOT BOTH AT THE SAME TIME! Refusing to be daunted, I used some jacks to connect the DVD player to a VCR and played the DVD while recording on the VCR. This worked fine for the opening and center titles since they were in black-and-white, but when I got to the color sequences, starting with the bows, the VCR would record them ONLY in black-and-white!
So I returned the DVD player, which was quite new, and used the money to buy this thing--a Zenith VCR/DVD burner at Radio Shack-- http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2104618&cp=2032...
to solve my problem.
It worked BEAUTIFULLY--or so it seemed. I finished recording the tape, in color, and my friend was able to run off any number of VHS tapes from it. Then he put my original VHS tapes into his Sony VCR/DVD RDR-VX 500 to make the DVDs. All worked well--UNTIL IT HIT THE BOWS, then the whole thing STOPPED DEAD! It said it was copyrighted material and could not be duplicated! This, from a homemade DVD I BURNED MYSELF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My friend is savvy enough (heck, even I am that savvy) to know once the VHS tape is copied that should take care of any of that-type stuff. So he put in one of the VHS copies he had made of the tape to try to continue the DVD burning process and it did THE SAME THING AT THE SAME PLACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What's more, if that DVD had been copyrighted, the Zenith should never have let me dub it to tape in the first place--it ought to know better! As soon as he called me with this news, I ran straight to the Zenith, put a blank VHS tape in, put a copy-protected DVD in, pressed "Dubbing," and sure enough, a message came right up, "Protected material is uncopyable" or the like.
Still, I can't help but suspect the Zenith as having had a hand in the nefarious business, as everything (INCLUDING the titles taken off the SAME DVD by way of the VCR) acted FINE up until the part done on the Zenith! I also have to suspect Toast, the LaCie, or both may be involved, as I dubbed ALL the camcorder material on that second tape on the Zenith and it worked fine.
I THINK THEY'RE ALL CONSPIRING AGAINST ME TO AT LAST DEPRIVE ME OF MY FEW REMAINING SHREDS OF SANITY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So here we are: my friend can dub any number of VHS tapes, but, EVEN THE COPIES have this "whatever-it-is" bug that was put on at some point either in the DVD-making process or in the dubbing process on the Zenith though I don't see how. Meaning, presumably, at least if other peoples' equipment acts like my friend's, even years in the future when people try to transfer their VHS tapes to DVD THEY WILL STOP BURNING IN THE SAME PLACE! Right at the bows. And might or might not tape in the sequences after that, EXCEPT, OF COURSE, those I edited in iMovie, ON WHICH I EXPENDED THE MOST HEARTBREAKING LABOR!
What's more, there are reasons we WANT DVD copies NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Now, of course I could just stick the VHS tape into the Zenith and dub a quickie DVD on the attached DVD burner, but it would of course copy the bug. The only other solution I have is for my friend to give me back the second tape, and me to run it back into iMovie starting at the problem part using the Canopus. This will mean purchasing the iMovie update right away, before I was planning to, as I REFUSE to use iMovie 3.0.3 EVER again. Now, since it's all edited already, this shouldn't mess up anything that's on the tape. My questions (which you knew I was getting to) are:
1. HOW CAN THIS HAVE HAPPENED?????????? WHAT CAN BE DONE TO PREVENT ITS HAPPENING EVERY TIME I WANT TO MAKE A DVD??????????????????
2. If I run the material from the VHS tape back to iMovie using the Canopus, will the Canopus "unencode" the problem area sufficiently that I can run the sequence back out through the Canopus onto another VHS tape so my friend can copy the movie onto DVD from that tape?
3. How can I find whatever the problem was in burning my DVD and fix it before I EVER burn another DVD? Was it in Toast, the LaCie burner, or some perversion specially wrought by the Zenith? Is there any possible way the problem could have been in iMovie 3.0.3 or did it happen after the footage left iMovie?
4. Am I really cursed and are all these machines really conspiring against me?

Answer 1

Someone suggested the problem is CPRM protection put on at some point in processing the DVD portion, which I've concluded it must be. My friend tried dubbing again, and his Sony dubs everything taken off the camcorder, then stops dead again at the next section taken off the DVD. That eliminates all other offered explanations, such as extraneous noise, out of synch, etc.
But where was the CPRM protection put on? When the disk was burned, meaning I should jump on LaCie, the makers of the DVD burner, and Toast, the makers of the DVD authoring program? Or when the material was transferred from DVD to VHS, meaning I should jump more heavily on Zenith? It's my inclination to blame Zenith but don't want to jump on the wrong ones.
In a way I'm glad thousands are in the same boat, as manufacturers in the future will have to deal with it!
My plan for fixing THIS SITUATION, UNLESS SOMEONE WHO KNOWS A LOT MORE THAN ME SAYS DON'T EVEN TRY IT, IT WON'T WORK, is to take the original VHS tape (which my friend delivered to me), run it into the computer using the Canopus, use a program (Vidi, if it will work, iMovie, if not) to run it out through the Canopus, and record it to VHS tape. My friend has his doubts, worrying that the Canopus may not, in converting the material, filter out the CRPM protection. Does anyone know if it will, or won't?
IF IT WON'T, EXTREMELY HEAVY, AGONIZED SIGH, that means putting everything into iMovie--to get the most first-generation version possible, it would mean I'd have to convert everything already dubbed from half a dozen 8mm camcorder tapes into iMovie using the Canopus, then do all the editing already done on the VCR all over again in iMovie to make it into one continuous movie, then take it out through the Canopus to VHS. In this case, none of the material would have come in contact with the Zenith at any point, so my friend's Sony should not have a problem with it, BUT I SURE HOPE THE OTHER IDEA WORKS AND IT DOESN'T COME TO THIS!
I'll also be running an experiment on the Zenith involving transferring material shot on a friend's newfangled digital camcorder, which is not even capable of producing a VHS tape but she gave me a DVD done on her computer, to VHS tape. Then I'll see if the Zenith will dub the entire tape (my portion, dubbed from my camera to VHS, and hers, dubbed from her DVD) to another DVD, or whether it pulls the same trick as the Sony.