You have raised some very valid points.

JJK

I believe you'll face a pretty strong loophole (or would that be flimsy loophole?). In most of the licensing agreements you'll see something along the lines of "you are granted a license for the material on THIS disc. (emphasis added) I'm sure if you tried to raise the case they would use that phrase to deny your request as invalid.

In one sense, i can kind of agree with that terminology and it's implications. You have purchsed one license. Just because you could leagally make a copy of the disc wouldn't suddenly double your priviledges as a license holder.

On the other hand, i can agree with your sentiment. Many of the big software companies in the days before 'net distribution would honor your license and replace damaged media. I had to do that with Ashton-Tate. Their installation routine would mark the original floppies as "installed" and they couldn't be used for another installation until you used them to uninstall the first one. Only then could you use the floppies to install on another PC. Well, we upgraded hardware, uninstalled, and the floppy went bad. I had to send the original disk back to them and they replaced it with a new one at shipping cost. That was rather nice of them. Of course, because of their policy, we ended up without a database to run our business for 4 days. That was very bad. But, that draconian example aside, many of the software companies i've dealt with would be more than happy to send me replacement media at low or no cost.

I guess one test would be to answer this:

If someone who had bought a dub of one of your video programs contacted you and said they'd ruined the tape, disk or whatever, could they have another copy - how would you respond?

My cost plus shipping.

> many of the software companies i've dealt with would be more than happy to send me replacement media at low or no cost.

Kelly, you bring up a very good point. Many software companies will replace your media for a minimal cost. Record companies should do the same. When a CD wears out, why should you have to pay again for the music? You already paid your royalties for the privilege of listening to it!

Hey, maybe we can get a class action suit going against the record companies that sold us those inferior LP’s. You know the one I mean. The vinyl ones that got all scratched up when you played them. It was planned obsolescence I tell you. A communist plot! They should be replacing those free of charge due to the shoddy craftsmanship. Yea... that’s the ticket! :-D

~jr

That's not neccessary. Vinal LP's may have been inferior, but they were easy to back up!

Again I use by book analogy. If you bought a book and then ripped out some pages or spilled coffee, would you expect the publisher to replace the book?

Or if they came out with a new expanded version (such as "The Stand" by Stephen King did) would you expect a free or reduced price copy?

Dave T2

For the prices we pay these days, hell yes I expect them to replace it becomes damaged not due to carelessness or neglect. Ever seen a cd-rom drive shatter a CD? I have and who replaced the CD? The publisher? Nope. The CD Rom Manufacturer? Nope. Me. And I wasnt careless with it either.