Hi all.

As many people know, CD's have a limited life, the typical failure mode
being the aluminium layer developing "pinholes".

The problem is that most sensible people back up their valuable disks
to CDR in case the original gets damaged. Legally (ignoring the RIAA's
protests) you are allowed to make a single backup copy in the original
format as long as you have purchased the disk.

So, what happens if that original disk becomes unreadable?

Is ownership of the original (unuseable) disk enough to stay within the
law, or does the copied digital content become illegal the moment the
disk is unreadable?

-A

wrote:
As many people know, CD's have a limited life, the typical failure mode
being the aluminium layer developing "pinholes".

Many people "know" that, but that doesn't make it so.

The problem you are describing was a real one for only a limited
number of disks pressed at a limited number of plants over a short
span of time. These disks were made using a procedure that was
not up to standard and resulted in quick deterioration.

On the other hand, I have disks dating back 20 years that show
no signs of deterioration. I have equipment that's capable of
measuring and displaying the uncorrected error rates, and the
error rates on these disks have remained unchanged over that
period.

Besides "pinholes" in the reflective layer almost always result
fully correctable errors anyway.

The problem is that most sensible people back up their valuable disks
to CDR in case the original gets damaged. Legally (ignoring the RIAA's
protests) you are allowed to make a single backup copy in the original
format as long as you have purchased the disk.
So, what happens if that original disk becomes unreadable?
Is ownership of the original (unuseable) disk enough to stay within the
law, or does the copied digital content become illegal the moment the
disk is unreadable?

The first part of your post describes a technical problem, even if
somewhat inaccurately.

The second part of your post describes mostly a political and to
a lesser extent a legal problem, and any answer for that are far
more murky.

One thing that is for certain, despite the RIAA's wishes, protestations
and actions, they are NOT a law-setting body. What the RIAA wants
and what the law proscribes are, very often, two entirely different
things.

Basically, this is a question for the legal-eagles to settle. Which
means it won't be settled.

wrote in message
oups.com
Hi all.

As many people know, CD's have a limited life, the
typical failure mode being the aluminium layer developing
"pinholes".

Yes, that's why 100% of the CD's I bought the first year the CD was
commercial are still 100% playable. Well, they're playable if I can find
them (I can find most of them!) and if I'm interested in the music that is
on them. ;-)

On 20 Feb 2006 03:52:41 -0800, wrote:

Hi all.

As many people know, CD's have a limited life, the typical failure mode
being the aluminium layer developing "pinholes".

As many more knowledgeable people know, this was a very short-term
problem which occurred at one plant in the mid-80s. Not a problem
since 1990, which covers about 99% of CD production.

The problem is that most sensible people back up their valuable disks
to CDR in case the original gets damaged.

Actually, I've *never* done that, since I've *never* had a pressed CD
fail. OTOH, my 'top 250' are all now downloaded to my laptop for
transfer via iTunes to my iPod, so no real problem with longevity in
any event.

Legally (ignoring the RIAA's
protests) you are allowed to make a single backup copy in the original
format as long as you have purchased the disk.

So, what happens if that original disk becomes unreadable?

Is ownership of the original (unuseable) disk enough to stay within the
law, or does the copied digital content become illegal the moment the
disk is unreadable?

Nope, ownership of the original disk covers you, and indeed you can
make a further backup since the original is unuseable.
--

Stewart Pinkerton | Music is Art - Audio is Engineering

In article .com,
wrote:
Hi all.

As many people know, CD's have a limited life, the typical failure mode
being the aluminium layer developing "pinholes".

From what I've read, failure of the aluminum reflective layer seems to
be fairly rare, and usually indicates that there was a problem in the
manufacturing of the disc. There was a problem some years back with
"bronzing" of some CDs, caused by the use of an inappropriate lacquer
to protect the aluminum surface. I haven't heard of this occurring
more recently.

In practice, I suspect that physical damage to the CD (scratches to
one side or the other) is more likely to "kill" a CD than
deterioration of the aluminum layer.

The problem is that most sensible people back up their valuable disks
to CDR in case the original gets damaged. Legally (ignoring the RIAA's
protests) you are allowed to make a single backup copy in the original
format as long as you have purchased the disk.

In cases like this, it can also be a good idea to record in a CD-ROM
format (e.g. an ISO9660 image containing .WAV files ripped from the
CD) rather than making a playable Red Book copy. The extra layer of
Reed-Solomon error correction coding on CD-ROMs makes them more
resistant to deterioration or damage to the CD-R/CD-RW medium.

So, what happens if that original disk becomes unreadable?

Is ownership of the original (unuseable) disk enough to stay within the
law, or does the copied digital content become illegal the moment the
disk is unreadable?

I'm not a lawyer, but my recollection is that the legal convention is
that when you buy a CD (or a book), you buy ownership of the physical
object, plus a license to use the material thereon. And, under
fair-use conventions, it's generally held to be legitimate to copy the
material onto another medium, for purposes of either archival
preservation, or convenience in accessing it. As far as I know, the
destruction or deterioration of the original medium would not
terminate your right to the license-to-use the material thereon.

The courts have tended to look at the question of whether copying is
fair or not (i.e. a copyright violation) by examining several
questions. Key among these is the question of whether the copying
dilutes the legitimate commercial market for the work. I don't think
that the courts would reasonably hold that you'd be diluting the
commercial market for an album, simply by maintaining a for-your-
own-personal-use playable copy of a work that you'd legitimately
purchased through commercial channels.

I know of no legislative or case law (i.e. court rulings) which would
say that your original archival copying would suddenly become
illegitimate when the original was damaged, or deteriorated beyond the
point of being usable.

If you're *really* concerned about the possibility of being hassled
over the question, I'd recommend actually keeping the (deteriorated)
original CD that you purchased, as proof of legitimate purchase.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
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