At the time, walkmans were trending: people would use recording devices to record the song if it played via the radio or at a concert. You would know at least one friend who has a legit copy (vinyl or cassette) “borrowing” that for the purpose of pirating music, in which that finished recording is replayed on a walkman to listen.
The invdividual uses a voice recorder, the ones with cassettes to store audio but what could happen is that you can capture other audio cues irrelevant to the song (door opening or people speaking in the background). It’s kind of volatile in that sense, unless you are in a room that’s dead silent and soundproof capturing the audio.
My dude, it was the 80s, not the dark ages. We didn’t normally have to use a voice recorder to dub tapes. Component systems made taping off records, cassettes, radio, or whatever else easy. Every one of my friends had a dual cassette deck somewhere in the house.
I can’t think of a single person - my grandparents included - who DIDN’T have a dubbed copy of an album or a mixtape someone has given them.