Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fair Use
Not Fair Use
Your stereo
Your friend's stereo
Copy
Backup
Original
Copy
Copy
Your portable player
FIGURE 4.7
Space shifting is the creation of a copy for backup purposes or for use in a
portable device, and it is considered fair use. Making a copy for a friend is not considered
fair use.
compressed versions. The availability of MP3 encoders and decoders in the mid-1990s
helped speed the development of portable music players.
Diamond Multimedia Systems introduced the Rio MP3 portable music player in
1998. About the size of an audiocassette, the Rio stored an hour of digitized music. The
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) asked for an injunction preventing
Diamond Multimedia from manufacturing and distributing the Rio. The RIAA alleged
that the Rio did not meet the requirements for the Audio Home Recording Act of
1992 because it did not employ the Serial Copyright Management System to prevent
unauthorized copying of copyrighted material.
The US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, upheld the ruling of a lower court that the
Rio was not a digital audio recording device as defined by the Audio Home Recording
Act. It denied the injunction on these technical grounds. In addition, the Court affirmed
that
space shifting
, or copying a recording in order to make it portable, is fair use and
entirely consistent with copyright law (Figure 4.7).
Leslie Kelly was a photographer who maintained a Web site containing many of his
copyrighted photos. Arriba Soft Corporation created an Internet-based search engine
that responded to user queries by displaying thumbnail images. Arriba Soft created the
thumbnail images by copying images from other Web sites. When Kelly discovered that
the Arriba Soft search engine was displaying thumbnail images of his photographs, he
sued Arriba Soft for copyright infringement.
The US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, upheld the ruling of a lower court that
Arriba Soft's use of the images was a fair use of the work [38]. Two factors heavily favored
Arriba Soft's claim of fair use. First, the character and purpose of Arriba Soft's use of
