One of the proofs that making a backup of your software/movies should be a right is given in an article on an Australian website. According to the article many DVD discs are suffering from DVD rot. DVD rot is a combination of corrosion -and delamination, where the layers of the disc separate.
Symptoms of the rot include picture break-up and freezing at a specific place on the disk. The main cause is believed to be poorly designed cases. Delamination shows up as a coffee-like stain that prevents the disc from playing. Among those worst affected are video rental stores, which buy millions of DVDs per year. |
"Some stores have reported they only get two or three rentals from a DVD before it's unplayable," said Ross Walden, director of the Australian Video Retailers Association. Distributors "are washing their hands of it", he said. "Once a DVD has been rented out [distributors] will not take them back."
Rohan Byrnes, 34-year-old science fiction fanatic who owns 350 DVDs, has spent a lot of time looking at rot. He works as a failure analysis engineer, with access to an optical microscope. Mr Byrnes has studied five cases of DVD rot - four in his own collection - and suspects the microscopic corrosion spots on the aluminium layer inside the disc could be caused by a "chemical attack", possibly related to the glue used.
As the distributors not always are willing to replace the discs, altough its your right, it certainly should not be illegal to make a backup. Most countries till now do not forbid you to make a personal backup, however stricter copyright laws could forbid this in the future. Read the entire story here.
Software that can help you in making a backup of your DVDs can be found here. Discuss this in our DVD Forums.
Source: SMH.com.au
