Space shifting
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. (June 2007) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. |
Space shifting is a concept that has been argued in copyright law to permit owners of some form of media, such as a song or movie, to convert that media from one format to another, generally by converting an audiotape, videotape, compact disc, or DVD into an electronic file stored on a computer. The term is argued as an analogy to the time shifting argument that succeeded in Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417 (1984), in which the United States Supreme Court held that the sale of VCRs did not contribute to copyright infringement because taping a televised event to watch at a later time was not an infringing activity.
In Recording Indus. Ass’n of Am. v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., Inc., 180 F.3d 1072, 1079 (9th Cir. 1999), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals applied the "space shifting" argument in the context of the Rio device (a portable MP3 player). "Rio merely makes copies in order to render portable, or 'space-shift,' those files that already reside on a user’s hard drive. . . . Such copying is a paradigmatic noncommercial personal use."
On the other hand, the space shifting argument was rejected by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in A & M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. 239 F.3d 1004 (9th Cir. 2001), but only in the context of converting media to electronic files that are to be stored in a system where they are widely available to be copied. In UMG Recordings, Inc. v. MP3.com, Inc., 92 F. Supp. 2d 349 (S.D.N.Y. 2000), the court also rejected space shifting, stating that consumer protection or convenience was not paramount in copyright law, but rather protecting the rights of the copyright holders.
