I still buy CD's, and I, too, want to be able to transfer the content as the media changes. I also want to make back-ups of out of print material.

In Canada, we pay a (large) levy on blank media of almost all type - DVD-R, CD-R, hard drives in mp3 players...the music industry even wants to extend it to all hard drives! The money is (supposed to be) distributed to recording artists to "compensate" them for downloading illegally. I've resisted the urge to "compensate" myself for this ridiculous levy - I have a lot of friends in the music business and I respect copyright law - but someday I might just start.

Kevin.

Kevin, you bring up and interesting dilemma!

You're paying for the "right" to download music, but you don't because you honor the copyright laws.

It almost seems as though they are saying, "Okay, you guys can go ahead and download stuff, even though you shouldn't, and we're gonna charge you to do it, just in case you do." They've created a self-fulfilling prophecy for themselves! Leave it to government, huh?

J--

On the other hand, the laws that created this levy have also been used to stop the recording industry in its tracks in its attempts to track down and sue Canadian uploaders/downloaders. If this changes and the "loophole" is closed, they'd sure better get rid of the levy at the same time.

Frankly, even with the levy, blank CD and DVD media are so cheap these days that I don't give it much thought.

I'm more concerned about the copy protection methods being used to essentially prevent what has clearly been protected as fair use.

Good thing my Plextor CD drives aren't affected by any copy protection scheme I've come across. Because I'm not about to buy a second copy of a CD just to feel safe about using it in my car.

I think that people should be buying personal usage license rights for whatever media they're buying, that are COMPLETELY independent of the media that they bought once.

Great example: I have bought probably 4 copies of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and Bob Marley's "Legends" albums, then cds...

They get lost, or scratched, whatever..

I shouldnt have to buy another copy of the MEDIA that was damaged or lost, since I bought it once...

I think that if for example, I go buy a copy of a movie, even if I lose my original DVD, I should somehow be able to get the content again, since I bought a personal copy of it/licensed for myself ..

ideas on that?: personal licensing vs buying only the specific one copy of the hard media, that may change formats, or get damaged?


Ken

I've already seen several articles that are slanted towards sensationalism. The NIST expert quoted actually says that burned disks should be good for 100-200 years, and RW disks should be good for 25.

There definitely was "rot" in Laserdiscs, but it affected only a very small percentage of the disks and many say it was due to the fact that Laserdiscs are very large in diameter and very easily flexed to the point of breaking the internal structure. People said it looked like brown coffee stains inside the disk.

I was stunned a few years ago when some of the CD-Rs that I had burned for my daughter suddenly began flaking their aluminum data layer. It actually became a sort of game my daughter and I played, seeing who could get the largest single piece of aluminum off the disk intact. This shedding only occured to a batch of cheapo no-name CDs I had purchased. The rest of the CDs from that era still play fine.

A DVD disk is far more durable than even a CD, since that critical data layer is in the middle of the plastic sandwich, not exposed at the top as in CDs. If you're curious, try a little experiment-- wrap a DVD coaster in a small towel, and flex it until it breaks. You'll probably find that: (1) it takes a lot of abuse to make it break; (2) when it finally does go it does so in a pretty impressive manner (hence the towel); and (3) once broken, one can see the data layer in the middle and can separate the two halves pretty easily.

As an aside, I have to cringe when I see DVD boxes that force you to really wrench the DVD off the center mount. I'm not so much worried about the disk itself, but rather the full-face labels I've applied, since just a moderate amount of bending puts a single cosmetic "crinkle" in the beautiful glossy surface. Some boxes have much nicer pushbuttons in the center that pop the disk off.

Ken, interesting concept. Using your example... I buy a DVD of movie A and a license, as you suggest. I lose that DVD. How do I get the content without another DVD? What would the cost of the replacement be and in what form would it come to me?

J--

Most game companies already do this: You buy game A. You break/scratch disk. Send back to company with $5-10 & get a new one.

I wish the music/movie companies made this move. That would of taken the "i shouldn't have to pay more then once" argument away. :) Change it to a buck or two though. :)

Hi J, it would be in a database that each content provider/distributor maintains, just as in software... eg if I buy the latest Vegas software, if I lose the original CD/DVD it came on, I should be able to get a replacement disc for a nominal fee as long as I've registered previously...

So, rights should go to the person buying them, for personal use, eg per movie or per song... so if I buy a movie and I then lose my dvd, I should still be able to contact the original company and get a replacement for the wholesale cost of media + shipping, or whatever's fair..

Ken

Back in my early days of data processing, when my company purchased a license for a very expensive piece of software, we had the vendor place the source code into escrow as a safety measure for our continued use of the software in case of the vendor going under.

Kencalhoun (two messages up), the only problem would arise with inexpensive songs and albums. You would end up paying more for the archiving of the data on who owns what than for the song or album. And, it would end up being a significant part of the price of DVDs, especially budget DVDs.