This was during an era where VHS was standard and DVD’s were just brand new at the time (before streaming sites existed). Chains like Blockbuster were booming back then with people renting movies or even TV shows for a fee but have to return them by an expected date, what happens is that in order to “keep” a copy, people would use a PC with disc burning software to burn the contents from that DVD onto a blank one.
Know those blank white DVDs? Basically those were used on storing a “pirated” disc for themselves before returning the rented copy back at the video rental store. When I was a kid, I remember encountering what clearly a pirated copy of The Prince of Egypt (so who ever pirated it kept the rented copy) since the disc art is crappy & low quality (it’s been printed then glued onto a blank DVD used for copying upon peeling it off).
It was not free. You rented for a price, then returned the VHS. The longer you kept it, the more you paid.
My grandma recorded a few thousands of VHS, but she aimed at an historical collection so that was all from the television, dubbing existing VHS needed more equipment and was. Not that easy.
We had a VHS camcorder that didn’t have the anti copy channel on its play head. So you could record commercial VHS with the scrambl copy protection right to any connected VCR. I think at even had S-video for higher quality, but I may be wrong. It’s still in my moms attic because I wouldn’t let her throw it away 7-8 years ago.
But also during the Netflix DVD era I ripped 100s of movies and tv series.
The drives are all dead by now though because burning them to DVD took too long.
That was Macrovision, which was a signal inserted into the top few frames that weren’t shown on a TV, but which the VCR used to calibrate its black level. I designed a box which removed them so I could make copies of stuff. It was a bit pointless with hindsight, because I very rarely watched the copies I made. I think the enjoyment of getting one over on the man was far more than actually watching the films.