this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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I mean maybe technically (I'm sure it varies depending on country). But I'm not aware of any cases where they've ever pursued anyone for that.
It's definitely a grey area in the US, I believe (again, no precedent set), and someone with a good lawyer could actually get a good ruling here, which would set the precedent. Which is probably why they never pursue it. I think that happened with VHS when people were taping shows in the 80s/90s (could be misremembering that).
The concept of "fair use" in general (not referring to specific interpretations of the term) definitely allows you to do this. At least how I interpret it. I am not a lawyer.
So if it were me, I'd only be concerned with the ethics, and I see nothing ethically wrong with it whatsoever. But that's just me.
I don't know about the US specifically, but oftentimes, and definitely where I'm from, laws can have a small amount of "common sense" leeway and judges can find justifications for rulings if they want to rule a particular way. e.g. I have pirated games that I legally bought because there's literally no functioning "official" download link anymore, if anyone were to ever prosecute me for that, even if it were illegal technically a judge could find a way to rule it lawful out of sympathy or whatever other reason, if they wanted to. A lot of the time it's "the government can't have possibly intended this law to be enforced this way, therefore I rule XYZ".
In any case, as you said, I've never heard of anyone being pursued for that. And if it's not enforced, it's not a law.