Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!news.cs.indiana.edu!msi.umn.edu!noc.MR.NET!gacvx2.gac.edu!hhdist From: TNAN0@CCVAX.IASTATE.EDU Newsgroups: comp.sys.handhelds Subject: RE: Copying ROM cards Message-ID: Date: 20 Feb 91 02:34:00 GMT Lines: 61 Return-path: To: handhelds@gac.edu X-VMS-To: IN%"handhelds@gac.edu" > "Software is to title as ROM card is to car" makes sense. > Burn your car, and you still own what's left of it, but you don't get > another car for free. Hence car insurance. See also ROM card insurance. I'm sorry, but the software IS the commodity, not the ROM card. ROM cards provide absolutely NO useful purpose aside from storing software. Software, however, does provide usefullness... Thus, I am paying for the software (or the right to use it under license)... and YES, that IS the way it works under the law (to my and my lawyer's knowledge). Regardless... I'm getting sick and tired of defending my case from both sides... I do not believe that vendors should be expected to replace cards for free... But if they do not, then they should expect us all to protect our investments - via insurance OR via backups. 1) Insurance agrees to pay the vendor to purchase another card under the condition that I pay the insurance company money on a regular basis. It is quite obvious that the vendor would like this since he/she gets to sell a ROM card for $500 that costs (relatively) very little to make to the same customer twice. Well, if I were to maximize profits, I would find that it would pay to produce particularly fragile cards. Perhaps an argument would be "No, because the customers wouldn't buy them." Well, this must be wrong as many producers ARE producing fragile cards-- referring not JUST to HP cards, but synth cards, video game carts, etc... Advantages: Cards are protected Disadvantages: Insurance costs, delays in replacement, encouraging vendors to provide short-life cards. 2) Backups are legal for all software (or so they were last time I checked). I have never seen a licensing agreement tell me NOT to make personal backups and software provided for that purpose often states that personal backups are legal for all commercial software. Advantages: Software is protected Disadvantages: ROM card itself is not protected Now, for those of you who feel that feel backups are wrong, consider expecting vendors to replace cards. For those who feel that vendors replacing cards are wrong, consider backups. For those who feel both are wrong, explain WHY -- do not try to convince me it's not legal (unless you are a lawyer and can site a couple of cases). Tell me why personal backups are bad... Is it pirating? NO --- pirating is not even an issue so don't try to make it one. If you don't see why it's not an issue then you aren't reading the question: "What is wrong with personal backups?" It has nothing to do with vendor interests, except that they don't get extra $$$ from insurance companies. It has nothing to do with pirating -- pirating IS illegal, but the crime is not the copying, it is the EXCHANGING. Please, don't just try to criticize me. If you have an opinion, back it up [no pun intended]. I seem to remember a similar argument I had when I was five. Everyone was dead set on convincing me that it was illegal to remove matress tags. ---Xeno P.S. Xeno has been a friend-given nickname for many years -- if anyone else wants to insult me for considering him/her a friend, please do so personally: Gary Snethen 515-294-5491 Friley 4441 Ames, IA 50012