Copyright issue

[chrisrob]

Years ago, I used to record "Top of the Pops" from my transistor radio onto my cassette tape recorder - for my own personal use.
Nowadays, because I cannot get broadband where I am and am stuck with a slow dial up connection or even slower mobile "broadband", I cannot listen to Last.fm without frequent stops (and it doesn't pause and buffer like YouTube), so I download (using Firefox + DownloadHelper) and listen to tracks in their entirety later. Is this illegal? If so, what's the difference to the recordings of my teenage years?

[another-view]

Yes this is illegal, as was taping the programme from your radio. You now have a copy of the songs to keep and listen to without paying the original artist a penny.