unlike the UK. where you are not allowed to make backups, which is a common misconception.
[rant]
The UK has stone age copyright laws, which are largely ignored for things like backups. Pretty much the entire country would be arrested otherwise, since owning a copy of copyrighted material that was not licensed to you by the copyright holder is illegal, basically, which means owning a copy of anything you didn't create yourself and is not public domain (most things are not) and did not purchase through a licensed distributor or the owner is breaking the law. It's probably a bit more complicated than that, but I'm no lawyer, and I think I got the gist.
Like I said, utterly stupid. There's no such thing as fair use protected by law in the UK, unlike the US. Thankfully, the government has just realised this, and are making noises about reforming it. Just as well, as thanks to the Digital Economy Bill, using the internet in a manner that you'd think is legal is actually a grey area legally.[/rant]