Actually, from what I remeber of my law lectures (which admittedly were a helluva long time ago now) recording shows to vhs for personal use is legal in the UK. I can only remember the US case that set this precedent (Universal City Studios vs Sony aka the Betamax Case) but there's a similar UK case that covers us too.
Quote:
Handing down its decision in October 1979, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of Sony, stating that taping off air for entertainment or time shifting constituted fair use; that copying an entire program also qualified as fair use; that set manufacturers could profit from the sale of VCRs; and that the plaintiffs did not prove that any of the above practices constituted economic harm to the motion picture industry.
...
Although the U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the lower court's decision in October 1981, the decision, if it were to stand, would have been impossible to enforce. The home video market had been expanded enormously since the start of the case; VCR sales had increased from 30,000 sets a year in 1976 to 1,400,000 a year in 1981.
...
The Betamax case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which reversed the appeals court decision on 17 January 1984.
|