[PLUG] Dubbing commercial VHS tapes...

[Michael C. Robinson]

I want to do away with VHS.  VHS tapes take up too much space 
compared to say DVDs or a Linux server with a single hard drive.

Trouble is, those darn Disney tapes seem to be copy protected.  I
believe it is legal to make a backup copy of a commercial VHS tape
for personal use, but how does one get past the copy protection?  
The LiteOn DVD burner / VHS tape deck my Dad bought years ago works 
for going from VHS to DVD when a camcorder is involved, but forget
copying any commercial tapes.  The minute you pop in a VHS tape of 
say Aladdin and hit the copy button, copy protection flashes on the
television screen.  The copier obviously knows somehow that the source
VHS tape is copy protected material.

I having nothing against Disney per se trying to make it impossible 
to copy Disney VHS tapes, but Disney should offer a send in your VHS
tape and we will give you a rebate on a replacement DVD copy program.

What do people know about going from VHS to a local area network 
file server legality wise and technologically speaking?  What 
works and what doesn't work?  Is it legal to stream commercial 
videos from a local area file server for private home use?  Is 
it legal to copy the VHS case pictures to put on a private local 
area network titles web page?  I'm thinking a thin client can 
connect to the actual television and use that television as the 
monitor so to speak.  Streaming would involve pulling so many 
minutes into a large memory buffer off of the network before 
that many minutes is played so that there is no jitter.  The 
thin client would run NFS root off of the network.

Once the commercial videos are copied to say DVD discs, is it 
necessary law wise to keep the original VHS copies?

Are there companies that convert commercial VHS tapes to DVDs
for you legally?  I'd happily pay $10 plus the VHS tape to 
trade up to a legal DVD copy.

The only problem with replacing VHS tapes with DVDs is that even DVDs
take up a lot of space and you end up with a my DVD library is too big
problem.

If it isn't legal to even back up commercial VHS tapes, just say so.