I’ve never ripped CDs or DVDs before for any reason and am curious how this works since I have some stuff I wanna see about backing up but am nervous about ruining the disc. I’ve tried looking this up, but every time I do, I obviously am searching for the wrong thing because I have never found the info I’m looking for.
Ripping is just making a copy while removing the copy write protections.
The protections are only removed in the copy, though. Since OP was wondering if the original stays intact, it does.