Who wants a month of television?

There are usually a few gems lurking amid the piles and piles of slush on boingboing.net:

What the Promise does is grab the entire broadcast TV multiplex -- all the channels being broadcast in the UK -- slices them up according to the free, over-the-air electronic programming guide, and stores an entire month's worth. Why program a TiVo to get certain shows for you when you can record every single show on the air, all at once...

Well, hmm... have you ever tried to watch E4 during summer? There's Big Brother "Live" (where the house apparently located beneath a very busy flight path that coordinates their take-offs with the housemates talking about something interesting) and... yeah, that's it. Okay, for all I know they don't do that plane noise bleeping thing any more - I haven't watched it in year but it does render a perfectly good channel completely unwatchable for 3 months every year.

But seriously, this Promise thing could be a great idea - with the number of times I've accidentally played Guild Wars for 6 hours solid it could come in really handy for when I realise three days later that I was planning on watching some new program that I've never seen. (Where I'm going to find the time to watch these recorded shows between having a life and fitting in the marathon Guild Wars sessions is another question entirely).

I'm confused though - how come recording a show off television and watching it lots of times later isn't illegal but downloading it from a friend (okay, a peer) is? Is downloading a show broadcast on a subscription-only channel that I don't have treated any differently from downloading last night's episode on Freeview that I could have taped but forgot to? What if I'm recording a HDTV broadcast using a lossless format? Can I send that to my friend who also has HDTV but only has a VHS recorder? If you know of a link that answers any of these questions, let me know!