Is it illegal to sell the recovery disc images? [ Edited ]

[hyphyhoopster]

i called this guy up, he wasnt even selling physical cds.  Wanted me to bring my own cds or a thumbdrive and he was going to copy images for me!?

is this illegal?  if not, i might start doing the same thing.

Note from Moderator:  Removed link as it violated forum rules.

Message Edited by JaneL on 03-12-2009 06:10 PM

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

hyphyhoopster,

Yes, I believe that would be illegal for several reasons - Piracy of the Lenovo software, and Piracy of the windows OS.

I recommend against that.  It's like making copies of a movie or audio CD and selling the copies.

Mark

[ronan_zj]

if you have the thinkpad laptop, then u can make your own set of DVDs.

This guy is trying to rip you off.

[hausman]

> Piracy of the Lenovo software, and Piracy of the windows OS.

But presumably not if your ThinkPad has a license for that version of Windows. IOW if your system came with Win XP Pro you aren't violating anything if you obtain R&R CDs for a Win XP Pro pre-install.

OTOH if you get R&R CDs with Vista Business then you'd be violating the terms of the license agreement for your system. But in any case, if you only have a Win XP Pro product key then the Vista R&R CDs won't do you any good.

 

[hausman]

> u can make your own set of DVDs.

If you remember to do so before your HD crashes

Actually there are situations where you may not be able to burn your own set. For example the X61 series doesn't come with an optical drive. (Granted you need an external optical drive to do a restore but that could be a reader, not a burner.)

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

the Recovery discs can only be used on machines that is listed on the discs. 

Also, Recovery discs are not meant to be sold by third party other than Lenovo.

Then there is the problem of Microsoft OS licensing. 

[drskhan]

Yes. Piracy is always bad.

But it will be a good idea to "incorporate" availability of recovery cds/dvds for download at this forum as the official source.

For example in my case, I am in Pakistan. Recently I had some problem with my IdeaPad Y530 partition image. Recovery function was not working. I had to request for recovery dvds from IdeaPad USA support. These dvds were sent to my brother in California USA. Now he will send me these dvds via fedex.

So if recovery cds/ dvds updated images were available on official dowload section on this or lenovo web site, it would have been easier for a customer like me to get support rightaway.

What do you think Mark? This concept can be incorporated in e-support idea too.

Regards

Dr. Khan

Message Edited by drskhan on 03-13-2009 09:18 AM

[erik Community SuperMod]

---

drskhan wrote:

But it will be a good idea to "incorporate" availability of recovery cds/dvds for download at this forum as the official source.

---

the forum isn't a secure site.   something like this would need to happen with a secure login after a ton of measurements to prove ownership.   even then, credentials can slip as soon as a user unknowingly posts his or her MTM/SN info online, making the task even more difficult to monitor.

microsoft only allows OSes to be hosted by themselves and by certain education programs with only intranet access.   no public hosting is legal per their licensing rules.

it's a good idea though.   unfortunately it would be difficult (if not impossible) and costly to implement.

(edit: fixed typo)

Message Edited by erik on 03-13-2009 03:03 PM

[hausman]

> the forum isn't a secure site.   something like this would need to happen with a secure login after a ton of measurements to proove ownership.

An "obvious" way to validate eligibility to download would be the auto-detect feature that System Update uses. Of course that wouldn't be very useful when the reason you want to download R&R media is because your HD crashed and you want to reinstall on the replacement drive

[erik Community SuperMod]

afaik, system update only looks at a system's MTM number.   besides, it's easy to spoof an MTM and S/N.   i can do it in my sleep.