As far as I know, it is law that you are able to make one back up copy of music and data type things, and it kind of upsets me that lately 50% of the games I have purchased have not allowed this. I understand that pirating is rampant, but I would rather not be stuck with the bill of getting a replacement copy of the software. If companies want to make it virtually impossible to back up your own property, they should either be willing to foot the bill of replacement, or create a non-volatile medium that can't be easily wrecked.
Granted, I have never had a CD-ROM fail on me, but probably 10% of my music ones are scratched at least a little.