"the_constructor" wrote in message
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":Jerry:" wrote in message
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snip
mode=pedantic
By the way, TV programmes are still covered by the copyright laws,
the only relaxation is to allow time-shifting, this does not permit
archiving - which is what you are wanting to do.
/mode


Strange these laws.

If I copy a TV programme to VHS video tape and leave that on the
shlef which has been done byu just about everyone who owns a VHS
video recorder, then this is surely wrong as well. ?


Yes! The way the law is written permits a "time-shift" recording to be
made and kept for a "reasonable" length of time - now the _ONLY_
question a court would be interested in is, how long is 'reasonable',
the way I have answered that question in the past is like this - take
two people making a time-shift recording, one is the wife of a RN
submariner who has just returned to a 3 month term of duty and a bloke
who is meeting his mates down the pub, in the first case it would be
reasonable for the time-shift recording to be kept for perhaps four
months, in the second it might be *unreasonable* to keep it for four
days (the bloke who went down the pub could easily have watched the
programme either the same night or the next day)...

This aspect to the Copyright Act uses the words "time-shift copy"
because that is exactly the *exemption* clause permits, if the
copyright laws had been amended to allow everybody to hold an archive
copy of any programme the words "archive copy" would have been used,
just as they are in the clause that allows certain specified users to
make archive copies - such as educational establishments, broadcast
companies [1] and HMG depts etc.

[1] every broadcaster, as part of the broadcast reg's, has to keep an
'off air' recording of their output for a set length of time in case
there is need to review what was actually broadcast - such as in a
case of complaint say.