MONEY MORAL DILEMMA: Should Fearne stump up for Reggie's music collection?

Here's this week's hypothetical situation for you to cogitate on:
Should Fearne stump up for Reggie's music collection?

Fearne’s in a pickle; she has a week left to finish her dissertation and her computer’s gone kaput. She needs one fast, so she begs her friend Reggie to lend her his flashy laptop. He’s not happy, but as she’s desperate he gives in, yet no sooner has she left his flat than it gets pilfered from her bag - she’ll be finishing her work in the library now. While he’s got insurance to cover the stolen kit, there’s no cover for the unbacked-up £400 worth of music stored on it, so he wants Fearne to buy it again.
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Comments

  • skylight
    skylight Posts: 10,716
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    Sounds fair. You borrowed it, you're responsible for it, you need to pay up.

    Although if they are friends, then they should discuss about perhaps paying in instalments if Fearne is unable to pay in one go. Fearne should also show Reggie how to back stuff up for future reference.
  • ThinkingOfLinking
    ThinkingOfLinking Posts: 11,828
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    Yeah, I agree with Skylight. :)
  • minerva_windsong
    minerva_windsong Posts: 3,808 Forumite
    I would say yes, she should. Granted if I had, say, the Napster thing that lets you download as much music as you like for a flat monthly fee I'd probably be less bothered - OK it's a pain redownloading it all but it's not going to cost you anything other than what you were paying to keep the licenses anyway. Ditto if it's on CDs that you own because you've paid for that already. If however it's been bought from iTunes or something then yes, paid back in instalments if need be.

    Frankly I think they both need to learn about backing up/using memory sticks or portable hard drives, that way he wouldn't have lost the music and she wouldn't have needed to borrow his laptop!
    "A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge." - Tyrion Lannister
    Married my best friend 1st November 2014
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  • bc3000
    bc3000 Posts: 758 Forumite
    scotsbob wrote: »
    To be honest Reggae music is pretty desperate and not worth £400.

    lol who said it was reggae? presuming that she trusts him to make an honest quote of how much it cost, then she should pay him back, it was her responsibility. she could probably save money ordering off sites, getting cashback, using napster, etc though ;) so if i was her i'd say that i would get him the music myself!
  • dannahaz
    dannahaz Posts: 1,068
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    Yes, she should (or replace the music he lost) it wasn't his fault the laptop got stolen. But I think the paying in installments idea is a good one.
  • AHAR
    AHAR Posts: 984
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    "the unbacked-up £400 worth of music"
    :doh:
  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 2,175
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    It may be unbacked-up, but all the big legal music download companies allow you free re-downloads for this very situation.

    Most will even let you re-download your entire back-catalogue of purchases in one or two clicks.

    Job done.
  • He didn't back it up, his problem... Any computer user worth their weight in salt should back up media/documents if they don't want to lose them.
  • Sooler
    Sooler Posts: 3,108
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    No backups = a prat

    Lending it out with no back ups = a bigger prat

    The lappies been nicked, he can say any amount of stuff was on there, who knows. He should have made whoever he lent it to aware of what was on it. He chose to lend it, unfair to let someone think that they are borrowing just a laptop when really it contains valuable data - that has not been backed up - his problem.
  • Skeenfleent
    Skeenfleent Posts: 84 Forumite
    Well there's the fact that as others say, she should rely on herself and her own money, time and initiative, not the most convenient friend's laptop. I know one or two claimed 'independent' 'feminists' who acts like this (full of s**t basically). So the situation and replacing the laptop is 100% her responsibility, along with a huge dose of humble pie.

    On the other hand, anyone who doesn't back up (this usually means YOU, fool :mad: ) deserves everything they get, especially if they actually paid for those mp3s from a place that won't allow a re-download. :rolleyes:

    A good compromise would be her also paying the ISP bill for the length of time it takes to download the files again.

    I just finished recovering a friend's hard drive who didn't back up. I'm certainly not doing it twice, and I felt like helping myself to anything interesting on there as some small recompense for the £100s worth of work it took to restore.

    Even if you have to pay someone to do it (much cheaper before you have a problem than after it occurs) BACK UP YOUR SYSTEM AND FILES.

    A 1 TERABYTE external hard disk drive cost me £89.99 from Maplin (for once they were not more expensive than everywhere else but then put the price up £10 the next week). To back-up is simply drag-and-drop, job done. Then anything really critical, I back-up to DVD-R as hard drives ALWAYS fail in the end, just a matter of time. DVD-R discs are not mechanical, hence more reliable as a back-up. Flash drives are OK, but small, slow, prone to failure and also possible to lose.
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