Going one step farther, as the equipment becomes more available and less expensive, I'm seriously thinking about putting alot of my VHS tapes on DVD, and making copies of some of my favorite DVDs and keeping the original in a safe place, as our children are watching some of these tapes and DVDs quite frequently, and I'm always concerned about wearing them out or being damaged, so figure if they are watching a copy, I won't sweat about it so much.
One example is our 12 VHS tape set of The Little Rascals, which is missing one tape and the boxes are pretty trashed, although VHS tapes won't be worth anything in the future, it would still be nice to have had the originals in mint condition. We just recently got a 12 DVD set of the Three Stooges, which I definitely would not like to see get lost or damaged (they get watched frequently, as we don't have cable, and around here, we get NOTHING if we don't have cable).
I don't think you're violating the copyright law if you are only making a copy for yourself, and you bought the original in the first place.
Chester 
