It extends directly from space shifting in the physical world. The purpose of space shifting was to transfer a work to a preferred physical medium for greatest personal utility and interoperability. The purpose of format shifting is to transfer a work to a preferred “virtual” medium for greatest interoperability and personal utility.

NO DRM SYSTEM TO DATE ADEQUATELY ADDRESSES THE RIGHT OF THE PUBLIC TO “FORMAT SHIFT” COPYRIGHTED WORKS USING COMPRESSION SCHEMES, QUALITY, AND BITRATE OF THEIR CHOICE.

this is what the computer allows. Once you get past that nasty “modem” feature you realize the computer was designed as a universal tool for conversion and transformation of personal data (in this case media).

The vast majority of these uses are widely considered fair and noninfringing even by conservatives on the issue. The difference in opinions (and the public backlash/outrage) comes when people believe their holy quest to stop infringement with DRM should grant them the freedom to destroy untold (and at times uninvented) new transformative uses of media on the PC.

The best example i can think of as far as unintended collateral damage on fair use was a new wish i just added to my wishlist for digital media manipulation…. i’ll outlay some background.

Anime released in north america is generally of inferior quality (increasingly vastly inferior) to the japanese counterpart *at this point even native DVD resolution is higher in japanese releases*

My wish would be for a kit which would allow you to manually create and embed subtitles into legally purchased region 2 disks, and to convert them to region 1 as well. None of this involves compression or sharing over the internet, and since region 2 disks are twice as expensive only the fanatically dedicated would want to use it, so there’s no major threat to region 1 licensors. The artists get “paid”, the fans are happy, but there’s just one snag.

This perfectly legal use was not considered when DVD DRM was created. so now this perfectly fair use is illegal, and so are any tools which assist one in such activity.

Many arch conservatives on this issue see such innovative methods of adding value to content as “expendible” in the fight against what they consider the unmitigated anarchism of the internet. Unfortunately for them (and us) the majority of the public feels otherwise and civilly disobeys.

Introducing DRM *might* solve the problem of copyright infringment. What the cartel still doesn’t get is that lots of copying is not infringement, and the class of legitimate copying is the quid pro quo for their copyright ownership in the first place.