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Gideon.. Alex... I kept reading over and over again in the BetaMax decision and in a few other cases that time-shifting was for private, in-home use. Kind of blows it out of the water when you take it out in public and out of your own home.
Gideon.. read the decisions on fair use... read what section 107 has to say specifically about it. Teaching, commentary, parody.... You are taking one decision (BetaMax) and saying that it overrules copyright law.... it does not... it supplements it. Copyright law is the king of the pile and fair use deals with some exceptions. It's amazing that when people want to break the law they find loopholes... everyone else just says, hey.. this doesn't belong to me, maybe I should pay for it. Or .... OH SHIT ... my copy got thrown away, I guess I have to pay for another. No one in their right mind goes back to Sony Pictures and says I have a right to your show I bought 15 years ago... you must provide me with another copy or else I will get one by file sharing. Take care of your fucking house man... be responsible. If you lose or miss something, deal with the issue and pay for it. I agree with Alex.... do I have a right to every show on television by the mere fact that I own one and it has the potential to view all shows? Do I have the right to every program on cable because I pay my cable bill? If I pay for HBO does this mean that every show they deliver I now have a right to get via other means? Of course not... no reasonable person could ever come to that conclusion.
You have a right to copy a television program when it is offered. If your VCR dies, or the power goes out. Tough shit. If your friend recorded it, fine, go watch it at his house or borrow his copy (borrow... don't replicate). You are paying for a right to view when it is delivered, not ad infinitum. Your VCR is giving you the ability to watch at your leisure, in your home, not act as a distribution channel for everyone everywhere just because they own a television. Have some common sense... seriously.
A teacher copying a page from a text and using it for her 100 students is different than you delivering a complete rip of a movie (or television show). You will also notice that fair use does not allow a teaching situation to reproduce consumables (workbooks, etc). So even they have limitations on what they can do.
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