## Facts

- Trade associations representing record companies sued a manufacturer of the “Rio,” an early portable MP3 player.
- The Rio stored and played MP3 files that users transferred from a personal computer to the device’s internal memory.
- The Rio could not record directly from compact discs or other external audio sources.
- Plaintiffs sought to enjoin manufacture and distribution under the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 (AHRA), arguing the Rio was a covered “digital audio recording device” and therefore had to include Serial Copy Management System (SCMS) protections and satisfy AHRA royalty and related obligations.
- The district court denied a preliminary injunction, finding plaintiffs had not shown a sufficient likelihood of success and that the hardships did not favor an injunction.
- Plaintiffs appealed the denial of preliminary injunctive relief.

## Issues

1. Whether the Rio qualifies as a “digital audio recording device” under the AHRA because it is capable of making digital audio copied recordings “directly” or “from a transmission.”
2. Whether copying music files from a user’s computer to a portable player for private listening is consistent with the AHRA’s consumer-copying purpose (addressed only as background, not as a dispositive fair-use holding).
3. Whether plaintiffs established the likelihood of success on the merits required for a preliminary injunction under the AHRA.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction.
- The court held the Rio was not a “digital audio recording device” within the meaning of the AHRA.
- Because the AHRA did not cover the Rio, plaintiffs lacked a likelihood of success on the merits of their AHRA claim, defeating the request for preliminary injunctive relief.

## Legal Principles

- An AHRA “digital audio recording device” must be primarily designed or marketed for, and capable of, making a digital audio copied recording for private use by reproducing a “digital musical recording” either “directly” or “from a transmission.”
- A computer hard drive is not a “digital musical recording” under the AHRA’s definition when it contains mixed content (e.g., programs and data in addition to audio), placing computer-based storage outside the statutory trigger for covered devices.
- A device that merely copies audio files from a computer’s hard drive does not satisfy the AHRA requirement that it reproduce a “digital musical recording” directly or from a transmission, where the device does not record incoming transmissions itself.
- The AHRA’s text and legislative materials reflect an intent not to regulate general-purpose computers and computer-centric copying mechanisms through the AHRA’s device requirements.
- In reviewing preliminary injunctions, failure to show a likely merits success on the governing statutory claim supports denial of preliminary relief.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit concluded that the Rio MP3 player fell outside the AHRA because it copied files from computer hard drives that were not “digital musical recordings” under the statute and did not record “from a transmission,” so the AHRA’s SCMS and royalty provisions did not apply and preliminary injunctive relief was properly denied.


Recording Indus. Ass’n of Am. v. Diamond Multimedia Sys., Inc., 180 F.3d 1072 (9th Cir. 1999)