Would it be wrong to offer DVD's..

[MM PC Solutions]

Would it be wrong (legally) to offer recovery discs from various manufacturers at the cost of a dvd plus shipping per recovery disc?

 

[ProTech Support]

Do you mean ordering the CD from the manf, hold it in stock and then resell it?

OR

Do you mean copying them onto a new disc, and selling them?

I think either way you are going to run into a problem. I am sure this can prob. be fought about equally from the OEM side vs. our side, but in the end I have a feeling that, legally - its a no go.

 

[MM PC Solutions]

I was thinking of both.

Where the customer has a CoA but no disk. I would like to offer a "Copy" of the disk for a minimal fee.

Also, on the forum a few have been asking for recovery discs. This could be a way for them to collect them safely ensuring they are the real deal.

I know this type of thing is done on ebay but legally I am unsure.

 

[ProTech Support]

Yea, I am a bit unsure myself. We have seen multiple battles on here concerning using your own OEM disc on a customers computer during a re-install. Microsoft guidelines state that the customer must provide there own disc, and that you cannot use your own. Point is, they are picky, real picky.

I am almost 100% sure that copying the disc and reselling would DEF. qualify as a no.

As far as ordering and reselling, I guess you would need to talk to the OEM directly about that.

Be interesting to see if anybody does know.

 

[Jm Boyd]

Already being done...legally

http://www.restoredisks.com/

 

[ProTech Support]

Yea, but is this legal? For some reason I just do not see it being that easy. If Microsoft makes such a fuss about using your own OEM disc rather then the customers when doing a repair, how can they possibly be ok with you making a copy of your OEM discs and selling them for profit? If that was the case retailers like TigerDirect.com could just make copies of OEM discs and sell them for 100% profit rather then legally purchase them through Microsoft.

For some reason it just does not seem right to me, yea its an awesome idea, and could be profitable - but without legal confirmation I'm not sold on the idea.

 

[purple_minion]

However you need a license to install it, and you aren't counterfeiting CoA's. I think they may get angry that you really are taking away more "pure profit" from them raping you $30 for a ten cent dvd.

I would think that you are saving the OEM from frustrated customers angry that they must spend $30 to get what they already paid for, and so are more likely to come back to that OEM when they need to buy another disposable computer.

 

[nibblesandbits]

Guys guys guys....

You are the WRONG path... you need to offer RE-IMAGE DVDs that puts their OS back on their system WITH their software in event of a horrible virus infection / crash. Use Ghost or something and make it automated after they boot from the disc. This not only saves them the time of reinstalling drivers and software, it also puts $50 in your pocket, because that's more than a "fair" price considering they don't really have to come back for more (but they will come back to you if you handle your customers well) especially if something hardware related happens.

Maybe you're shooting yourself in the foot by doing that the more I think about it, but I don't know. Ideas on this?

 

[MM PC Solutions]

Guys guys guys....

You are the WRONG path... you need to offer RE-IMAGE DVDs that puts their OS back on their system WITH their software in event of a horrible virus infection / crash...

Maybe you're shooting yourself in the foot by doing that the more I think about it, but I don't know. Ideas on this?

I thought about re-image disks before (for customers) & thought that I may shoot myself in the foot but on the other side of the coin, would customers know how to use one!

I have seen many computers come to me that had pc angel installed but most customers do not know what it actually is let alone how to use it!

Also, that being said the majority of customers have to much to loose (data) to simply recover it back to when I repaired it for them.

 

[@ncient geek]

Would it be wrong (legally) to offer recovery discs from various manufacturers at the cost of a dvd plus shipping per recovery disc?

You will have to face two different legal points depending on you country of residence :

1) copyright, 2) the country's legal base for copying copyrighted material

In my buisiness (Microsoft Gold Partner for many, many years) we go about these issues in the following way :

- any customer with a valid licence sticker on his/her computer can ask for a copy of an original Microsoft OEM CD (or DVD). The customer will be charged for the price of the copy (e.g. 70 cents). This copy will not be of a branded OEM version, but of an original, hologrammed OEM disk with the latest service pack included.

- any customer with a valid licence sticker on his/her computer can ask for an original Microsoft OEM CD (or DVD). We will supply the customer with such IF we have spare original CDs (we usually have several dozen of these, as the original CDs/DVDs are nearly useless without the slipstreamed patches and hotfixes and most customers do not request these when we sell our computers). We will not charge for this service in any way, as MS explicitly forbids the resale of original CDs/DVDs for a profit.
If we do not have the requested original available, we will happily order such a disk from Microsoft (as you can freely order all original software disks, in any version). This will cost 30 Euros per original CD, non including shipment. We will then bill the customer the original cost, plus a handling cost of 15 Euros for the ordering procedure.

- concerning "ghosted" recovery CDs, legally this is definately not allowed by MS, as these CDs contain a licence code which is not a generic OEM SLP KEY. You may however place a recovery iso on the hard drive for such purposes, as long as this iso can not be recovered to another PC. Such is rather difficult to engineer outside an existing branded environment, as it usually supposes to tatoo the bios (ridiculous effort for a single computer).

BTW, this is a really nice forum. I discovered it by chance only a few days ago and have spent quite some time reading some very interesting posts.

 

[krutoi]

I thought about re-image disks before (for customers) & thought that I may shoot myself in the foot but on the other side of the coin, would customers know how to use one!

I have done this in the past, and will usually keep a copy of the re-image or make sure it is stored on the clients external drive or other safe location. Most times the customer is not going to attempt a re-install by themselves, they are going to call me to do it for them - there is just too much other stuff involved such as backing up data and restoring email and other settings after the fact for most folks.

Nowadays the first question I ask people with new laptops is "did you make your recovery discs yet?" Most are unaware that the option even exists.

 

[vontreigo]

I make my own re-imaging cd/dvd (restores the pc back to MY shop's install) and sell that. ($100) =) or if they want I keep the cd/dvd on file for $20 and then charge them $75 to restore later on.

 

[MM PC Solutions]

I make my own re-imaging cd/dvd (restores the pc back to MY shop's install) and sell that. ($100) =) or if they want I keep the cd/dvd on file for $20 and then charge them $75 to restore later on.

Email must be playing up!
You was quoted as saying in that:

I make my own re-imaging cd/dvd (restores the pc back to MY shop's install) and sell that. ($75) =) or if they want I keep the cd/dvd on file for $25 and then charge them $85 to restore later on.

 

[vontreigo]

Email must be playing up!
You was quoted as saying in that:

3/4 asleep

 

[jbutler9]

Ok, here is my problem,

I was recenly given a whole crap load of computers, some are almost 10 years old. They have the Product Key stickers on them and of course most of them had originally been bought and the Recovery Discs were included and or the Recovery Partitions were originally on them.

The problem is that I don't have the recovery discs and/or the partitions have been formatted.

I think that paying $25-$50 for recovery discs is outrageous. It should not be illegal for someone to share their recovery discs since recovery discs don't contain the product key on them. I mean come on, these are discs that cost about 10-30 cents to make and no time at all to copy.

 

[theFakeGeek]

I think that paying $25-$50 for recovery discs is outrageous. It should not be illegal for someone to share their recovery discs since recovery discs don't contain the product key on them. I mean come on, these are discs that cost about 10-30 cents to make and no time at all to copy.

Well it's the same as a customer telling you "Oh you only clicked a few times and you still want to charge me? Here I'll give you ten bucks for gas!" and you reply "Well I'm not charging for the clicks I'm charging for the knowledge that I had to know where to click." It is not 10 cents to create a disc, there is more to it.

As for your specific problem why don't you just use an OEM disc and download the drivers from the manufacturers site? It's better then using a recovery disc since you skip installing all of the trials and bloatware.

 

[jbutler9]

The problem is that I do not have any of the OEM discs and companies such as lonevo won't send me the cds since I don't have a warranty, even if I was willing to pay, which I am not.