True, Feardust, that's probably happened more than once. But, requesting a "copy" in this sense, means some kind Gameboomer is offering to loan an original disk pressed by the distributor/developer. (That is the intent anyway!)

Thanks for clearing that up, Witchen.

And I hope those laws change soon!

Yuppers, its a "sticky wicket" for sure, Feardust.

As usual the technology is way ahead of the legal curve.

This confusion is only going to get worse now that DVD recorders are becoming available. I myself have almost 100 Video Tapes I've collected over the years, and since Video's have a definite life expectancy, I'm just dying to get my hands on a DVD recorder, so I can start copying all these videos over to DVDs. Will I be breaking laws by doing that? I even have some old Beta movies I eventually want to copy over to DVD - anyone remember Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video? I have the Beta video "The Making of Thriller". It's 20 years old, and I'm afraid to watch it for fear that the video will deteriorate in the machine.

I've bought videos on ebay that were more than 20 years old and now out of print. They play OK videowise, though the sound usually has hiss. I'm not sure whether the original movie had hiss or not. I don't play them often, but I don't see any sign that being played a lot over the years did them much damage.

I'd say go ahead and copy the videos you really want to save. If they're reissued on DVD, they'll probably be cleaned up and much nicer to look at and listen to and you can buy the DVD's. But there is a lot of old stuff on video that will never be released on DVD and I think it's far more of a crime for it to be lost forever than that you make yourself a backup copy.

The law in regards to back up copies only applies to software. Movies copied for home use from broadcast and other medium has been permisseable according to the courts for some time. Many felt that the courts would apply the same logic to copies of software for personal use and also MP3 downloads - but they distinguished the two mediums and stated that due to other laws - software was different.

Unless the courts rule otherwise at this point making back up copies of videos is a whole different thing and should be legal as long as it isn't for sale or broadcast, in other words for profit.

Laura

2030 - The Supreme Court has finally ruled on making backup copies of your children. Essentially, Justice Bush IV, writing for the majority, stated that keeping one frozen embryo, cloned from DNA acquired at birth for the FBI databank, is permissible provided it is used only to replace a minor child in case of death or for the creation of spare parts in the case of accidental disfigurement or dismemberment or autologous transplant in case of disease. Use of DNA material to make more than one clone for use in farm or factory work is way unacceptable.

Gatorlaw and Others:

Copyright Act Section 117(a) speaks directly on point:

Making of additional copy or adaptation by owner of copy of Computer Programs

It says it is not an infringement to make a backup copy of a computer program if one of two requirements is met:

1) It an essential step to use the program.
OR
2) The new copy is for archival purposes only and all archival copies are destroyed in teh even that continued possession on teh computer program should cease to be rightful.

In addition, Section 1201 imposes a different requirement that you cannot circumvent a technological measure controling access to a protected work. Meaning that you can't use other programs to circumvent copy protection, like Jenny100 was talking about.

On audio recordings, you can make a home copy on an analog recorder or digital audio recording device (like a DAT player), as long as its for non-commercial uses (meaning you can't sell it) and its by a consumer. They allow this because they have placed a tax on blank medium that goes to the copyright holders. This is in Section 1008.

So my understanding of the bottom line is that YES, you can make a copy of your cd-roms AS LONG AS you don't cirucment any copy protection and your original copy NEVER leaves your possession.

This is all academic for me, since I don't own a CD burner, but I distinctly remember when I installed Tony Tough just about ten days ago that there was a clause in that agreement saying you could make a single copy for a backup, for personal use only...