Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
It's not me that is misunderstanding, the term backup means just that and nothing else. Those who are confused are attributing other activities to the term.
|
My experience of working in IT for over 20 years is that when we talk about "back-up", we include ensuring that we are able to restore, which is the only reason that back-ups are taken. Our back-up teams worry about tape and file formats, database consistency, password access to old data etc. etc. - to ensure that the restored data is not useless. So, my experience as a professional working in IT doesn't conform to your limited definition. Perhaps your experience is different (and there is no "right answer" for the meaning of any term in an absolute sense), but for everyone that I've dealt with professionally, back-up is all about taking a copy that you can restore (and not just sometimes, but in every eventuality that it is cost-effective to guard against).
Looking at DRM in this context, it makes back-up much harder, because you have to "back-up" the unlocking apparatus as well as the data. The only really practical approach for individuals doing back-ups at home, who typically can't afford the time and money to do this, is to strip DRM and back up the raw data.