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That issue has not been adjudicated. Nor, at this distance, do I ever expect it to be adjudicated. You would have a clear collision between the First Use Ruling (as currently in place) along with the Betamax decision, and the limits of copyright control.
Please note, in the US, everything is <legal>, unless explicit made illegal by law (properly adjudicated). A law can be passed and found unconstitutional, rendering it null and void. It is not removed from the books, merely made legally unenforceable. This leads to many grey areas. They are presumed to be legal, unless later adjudicated and found to be illegal, at which point, (technically from the time of filing the case) the action would be illegal. As long as no case is adjudicated, and there is no explicit statue against it, it is legal. The issue of how many times a <legal> (Betamax decision) recording can be watched is undefined. One time is explicit. More than once is undefined. There is no explicit statue stating how many times, nor has the issue been adjudicated, therefore is must be presumed that there is no limit. If one disagrees with that interpretation, one is free to file suit, in the US, and make his/her legal argument that there is a limit of only one viewing is legal. Until then....it's legal...
Consider the Betamax ruling. The MPAA <could> have sued all manufacturers for not selling recorders with a playback-once feature as part of the machine (per the Betamax ruling), using the ruling as legal reason for demanding the change (it was not technically unfeasable). Note the the MPAA <did not> file said lawsuit. Why? It wasn't lack of resources. If your argument was correct, it would have been an open-and-shut case. If it would be filed today, the question of why it took 35 years to file would be raised. So it won't be filed, and the dog will be left sleeping...
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