Off-air recordings?

[posieflump]

Reposted from the pirate DVDs thread-
This thread reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask for some time. I have a box full of Betamax tapes from the days when I had a reliable, working machine. I collect old television programmes and cinema films (mostly from the late 50s and 60s), and so these tapes have on them not only most of the early Channel 4 black-and-white archive television evenings, repeats of Hancock's Half Hour and the BBC's 60 BBC Years and TV50 celebrations, but also many privately obtained programmes that have never been repeated.
I have had many (but not all yet) of these tapes transferred to SVHS, but given that I spent many years collecting the recordings on them, I would be loathe to simply chuck the originals in the bin. However, I am well aware that due to the nature of the recordings, selling them would technically be copyright theft; not only would I be nervous of doing so, I would be actually expecting my sale to be ended early and my wrists to be severely slapped. To be honest, I would prefer to flog the tapes rather than give them away because the sale would recoup some of the cost of the transfers to SVHS.
Does anybody have any ideas? Am I being completely paranoid, or are my concerns real?

[premierfirst]

I can see your point of view on this one. I think your best bet would be to sell the tapes as used blanks (maybe 5 to be sold together etc), although there may well only be limited interest in them. Betamax died a death, but there will be some people out there who still have one and may be struggling to find tapes to use. Worth a try!

[matrixfan2003]

perhaps you could try and sell them to the television stations who broadcast the material at the time

some of them have probable deleted alot of there earlier stuff to make room in the archieves.

i'm sure they will be happy to have them back

[posieflump]

perhaps you could try and sell them to the television stations who broadcast the material at the time

i'm sure they will be happy to have them back

I used to work for the BBC, and believe me, they couldn't give a ****!