[iwassnow]

If I remember correctly,(please do correct me if I'm wrong) Microsoft's EULA for Windows 98 said that you could make as many copies of the disk for your own personal non-commercial purposes as long as the operating system was only installed one key per computer(not hard disk). It may have been something else that said it, but I think it was Win98.

[DaChew]

there was a court case where MS tried to keep people from backing up their installation cd

the ruling or agreement was you were allowed to make a copy and put the original away for safe keeping

with 98 running a repair disk or a clean install was a more frequent occurence unfortunately

My 98 cd's stayed in pristine shape, I never trusted a cd backup that much

[ferrija1]

Software CDs are different from music CDs.

[iwassnow]

Not neccesarily. It's all copyrighted intelectual property. It just comes down the argument between fair use and "pay for it every time you play your CD".

If the RIAA had their way, they would implement CDs that stopped working after a period of a few years, requiring you to buy it all over again. There was research on that for the DVD rental industry to prevent theft. The DVD's data was designed to disintegrate in 48 hours, but I don't know if it was ever sucessful.

[DaChew]

http://www.electronista.com/articles...rasing.dvd.ds/

how about 8 hours?

[iwassnow]

Yea that was it.

[JohnWill]

Any media that is copy protected is also protected by the DMCA of 1998, which is different than your typical music CD, which has no copy protection.

[DaChew]

which is different than your typical music CD, which has no copy protection.

Background
In August 2000, statements by Sony Pictures Entertainment US senior VP Steve Heckler foreshadowed the events of late 2005. Heckler told attendees at the Americas Conference on Information Systems "The industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams...It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what...Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source - we will block it at your cable company. We will block it at your phone company. We will block it at your ISP. We will firewall it at your PC...These strategies are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake."[3] BMG in Europe experienced a similar scandal in 2002 when CDs were sold with copy protection measures, but without any warning labels. They were eventually replaced by BMG,[4] but the company made clear intentions to continue copy-protection innovations.[5][6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_So...ection_scandal

this went over like a lead ballon