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

mippy

Skeenfleent wrote: »

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).

This isn't really the discussion to air your dodgy views on women. Sometimes people have to borrow things, regardless of what gender they are and what circumstances they are in.

Tirchia

I completely agree with BobbinAlong - his laptop, his responsibility, his insurance. If he is stupid enough to lend it without backing up his music or checking if his insurance covers it, tough! And it is unfair of him to apply pressure on his friend.
I think SkeenFlint is off on a completely discussion thread - who says she is a feminist? And so what if she were? He is the idiot and he could have lent it to any friend, male or female, feminist or misogynist.

theonlyrick

mippy wrote: »

This isn't really the discussion to air your dodgy views on women. Sometimes people have to borrow things, regardless of what gender they are and what circumstances they are in.

I was really confused by Skeenfleent's comment - except that s/he doesn't like women. Or humans either: "Typical - you lend a so-called independent feminist your laptop and she loses it! Wimmin - Tsk!"

First it was "100% her responsibility", then Reggie was told "he deserves everything he gets" - then they compromise by her paying the ISP bill for him to redownload them (ignoring that anyone with £400 of downloaded music *will* have broadband).

Skeenfleent then says how s/he wanted to steal some data from a friend's laptop for the '£100s worth of work it took to restore'. Great friend!

The final thing was that DVD-R discs are more reliable than hard drives - because they're not mechanical. Neither format has 'archival' reliability - the point about blank DVDs though, is that - per gigabyte - they're cheap.

Anyway, re the moral quiz - I think Fearne should pay up. Although Reggie *should* have backed up, he didn't. He did her a massive favour, following a bit of coersion from her, and so she should try and minimise the damage.

Supposing he had backed up, but the backup had corrupted and was useless? What happens then?

Oh - people keep on about redownloading the music for free. Although some music services let you redownload for free, the hypothetical one in this example doesn't. Which means that either Reggie will have to pay, (or could spend hours illegally re-downloading the 50 or so albums that were on the laptop).

peregrin

Morally speaking, yeah, assuming he bought the downloads legally, she should pay for it. Okay he should have been more responsible and backed up his music but the laptop was still entrusted into her care.

To people who said that legal download stores let you re-download, some do and some don't. iTunes - the biggest - for example does not as a rule, and although exceptions have been made (people have e-mailed CS with a sob story), there is no right to re-download. You are paying for the music, not the right to perpetually download a file. In the same way that if you buy a CD you cannot expect a replacement if you lose it. Even though digital distribution is cheaper, maintaining access to files for users in perpetuity is not free and neither is the (albeit small) amount of bandwidth required to send you the file.

steam_dan

No way should she pay. It is a fair assumption to make that if he can lend her his laptop then he has another computer he can use until it is returned. As he has more than one computer he should have backed up his files to the other computer.
To use another analogy, if Reggie had leant Fearne his car, but she was totally unaware that the boot was full of cash and the car had been stolen should she then be expected to reimburse him for the lost cash. Of course not, the cash should be in the bank. When she took possession of the laptop her responsibility was to look after the laptop not the contents, of which she would be totally unaware. He could just as easily claim that the laptop contained valuable work for which he was being paid thousands of pounds, and now that this work has been lost she should reimburse for this loss too. It sounds like he's trying it on to me.

pineapple

If I lent mine out and lost some precious files, I wouldn't think of asking the person to fork out for them. He lent the equipment not the contents. It is his fault for not backing up.
But I wouldn't lend out in the first place - particularly if there was something precious on it. In any case there are plenty of places with public access to computers - some of it free.
But the deed is done. I think they were both at fault here and the best he can hope for is that she might agree to pay towards replacement because she feels some moral responsibility. If not, tough.

hundredk

We all know the importance of backing up but I think many posters have missed the point blaming Reggie for not doing so. It's his lappy and his data to lose, not Fearns.

Fearne begged to borrow it and Reggie gave in against his better judgement. Of course Fearn should take responsibility for the lappy and all the data on it. Reggie already has the hassle of claiming on insurance so should give Fearn a list of what was on the lappy and once he recives the new one, leave it with Fearn together with a list of lost data so she can source and install again.

She should have gone to library in the first place.

janbanan

If Fearne borrows the laptop, it's her responsibility to keep it safe, not Reggie's. She should have found out what the value is of it was, and whether it was insured!

If she doesn't want to accept the responsibility, then don't borrow it!! Can't see the dilemma at all.

adwat

Reggie should have backed his stuff up before lending his laptop to his friend.

JuliaJolie

pineapple wrote: »

If I lent mine out and lost some precious files, I wouldn't think of asking the person to fork out for them. He lent the equipment not the contents. It is his fault for not backing up.
But I wouldn't lend out in the first place - particularly if there was something precious on it. In any case there are plenty of places with public access to computers - some of it free.
But the deed is done. I think they were both at fault here and the best he can hope for is that she might agree to pay towards replacement because she feels some moral responsibility. If not, tough.

I couldn't agree more. I tend to answer MMDs by thinking how I would feel if I were on both sides of the situation. I wouldn't have loaned it out in the first place; I would have offered to have my friend stay over at my house, but not leave with the laptop lol. IMHO it's not worth losing a friend over to ask her to pay it back; it's not like I've specifically loaned out £400 worth of CDS to her and she's lost ALL of them. If I had to pay to get the songs back I'd probably download them or ask for her help in trying to scout around for free replacements, but I wouldn't EXPECT her to pay for it.

If I knew I couldn't get back my music without paying for it all over again I would have let my friend know about how much was on there, especially if I was stupid enough not to back them up in the first place. If you've paid ONCE for the music, why on earth would you not back it up? I've had far too many viruses for my motherboard's liking