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Recording Industry Association of America

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"RIAA" redirects here. For other uses, see RIAA (disambiguation).

The Recording Industry Association of America (or RIAA) is the trade group that represents the recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of a large number of private corporate entities such as record labels and distributors, who create and distribute about 90% of recorded music sold in the US.

Responsibilities

The RIAA was formed in 1952 primarily to administer the RIAA equalization curve. This is a technical standard of frequency response applied to vinyl records during manufacturing and playback. The RIAA has continued to participate in creating and administering technical standards for later systems of music recording and reproduction, including magnetic tape, cassette tapes, digital audio tapes, CDs and software-based digital technologies.

The RIAA also participates in the collection, administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties.

The association is responsible for certifying gold and platinum albums and singles in the USA. For more information about sales data see List of best selling albums and list of best selling singles.

The RIAA's stated goals[1] are to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists, to perform research about the music industry,[2] and to monitor and review relevant laws, regulations and policies.

Company Structure

The RIAA is led by Mitch Bainwol, who is Chairman and CEO since 2003. He is assisted by Cary Sherman, the President of the Board of Directors. There are 27 members of the board, who are drawn from a number of record companies [3]

The RIAA represents a large number of members (see List of RIAA member labels), who are private corporate entities such as record labels and distributors, and who create and distribute about 90% of recorded music sold in the US.

Website

The RIAA's website contains a list of members. This list has been disputed in the past, as Matador Records, Fat Wreck Chords [4] Lookout Records, and Epitaph Records, who are not members have been listed there [5]. The reason for this is unclear.

The RIAA's website has been the target for some hackers [crackers] who oppose the RIAA's practices. Crackers (hackers) have been able to deface the website [6].

Efforts Against File Sharing

The RIAA is a fierce opponent of music file-sharing, asserting that it is piracy. The organization particularly targets music files distributed via the Internet using peer-to-peer software, a practice which the RIAA claims costs the music industry $4.2 billion worldwide [7].

Hilary Rosen, the RIAA's president and chief executive officer from 1998 to 2003, was an outspoken critic of peer to peer file sharing[citation needed], and under her direction, the RIAA waged an aggressive legal campaign trying to eliminate illegal file-sharing worldwide. Rosen has since expressed "concern that the lawsuits have outlived most of their usefulness," and that music devices should try "to work better together." [8]

The RIAA and its member groups argue that Internet distribution of music, without the consent of the owner of the copyright in that music, harms the careers of current and future artists, both because record companies would have fewer sales, and also because musicians, singers, songwriters and producers depend heavily on royalties and fees gained from their music.

The RIAA takes a broad view about what constitutes copyright infringement. In 2006, the RIAA claimed that ripping CDs and backing them up does not constitute fair use, because tracks from ripped CDs do not maintain the controversial DRM to protect the music file from copyright infringement. They argue that, there is no evidence that any of the relevant media are "unusually subject to damage" and that "even if CDs do become damaged, replacements are readily available at affordable prices."[9]

The RIAA sees lawsuits as one way to combat the problem of Internet-based piracy. RIAA President Cary Sherman claims that the large number of lawsuits filed has "arrested the growth of a runaway solution that would have grown worse and worse."[10]

In an Oklahoma case, Capitol Records v. Debbie Foster [11], the RIAA was forced to dismiss a case after a woman filed a motion for leave to make a motion for summary judgment and attorneys fees, stating that she had nothing to do with file sharing and that her only nexus to the case was that she had paid for internet access. The judge ruled that the RIAA's withdrawal of the case -- after one and a half years of litigation -- did not immunize it from possible liability for attorneys fees, holding that the defendant was a "prevailing party" under the Copyright Act, and therefore indicated that he would decide the attorneys fee question when presented with an attorneys fee motion. Mrs. Foster did indeed move for attorneys fees and her application was supported by an amicus curiae brief of the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Association of Law Libraries, and ACLU Foundation of Oklahoma. This was the third time the RIAA was known to have quietly been forced to back out of a case to avoid a loss, the others being Priority Records v. Brittany Chan [12] in Michigan and Virgin Records v. Tammie Marson [13] in California.

The RIAA claims in public statements that their crusade is to benefit the artists, however, not one cent of the lawsuits to date has been paid to any recording artist [citation needed], rendering the RIAA lawsuits beneficial only to the RIAA.

The RIAA Dirty Dozen

In a May 3, 2006 press release, the Association labeled the cities of Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Providence, San Diego, and San Francisco, "Piracy Cities" which have large numbers of individuals engaged in criminal copyright activities. Declaring them '...all "hot spots" of music theft, with significant piracy problems from the manufacturer level all the way down to the point of retail sale.'[14]

Criticism

File:Riaabad.gif
The RIAA is criticized for actions taken against both artists and consumers

Critics of the RIAA have claimed that the RIAA's attacks against the sharing of music files has failed to stop the sharing or protect their sales. They note the increase in CD sales during the Napster era and the subsequent decrease during the RIAA's crackdown on peer-to-peer network users[citation needed], and instead believe that the trading of songs over P2P actually introduces new artists to people who otherwise would not have noticed them, prompting them to buy new CDs created by these artists. The steadily increasing popularity of free content, such as that provided by Creative Commons, is taken by these critics as proof that the RIAA's restriction of free music downloads runs counter to their own interests. Some of the RIAA's members have released samples with Creative Commons licenses [15].

Organizations such as p2pnet [16] allege that the RIAA is, in effect, an organized cartel which artificially inflates and fixes the prices for CDs. The allegations note that the "Big Four" (EMI, Sony-BMG, Universal Music and Warner) distribute over 95 percent of all music CDs sold worldwide, and that the share of the price of an individual CD actually received by the artist is low, despite the large profits made by the record company.[17][18] In 2003, the major CD issuers in the American market, including the "Big Four" settled a major scale price-fixing case brought by 43 state Attorneys General by issuing refunds to consumers and donating CDs to libraries and educational groups [19]. This drew additional criticism, since many of the CDs donated to schools were duplicates or were inappropriate for high school libraries [20].

There is much criticism of the RIAA's policy and method of suing people for copyright infringement, notably with Internet-based pressure groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Boycott RIAA and FreeCulture [21]. To date, the RIAA has sued more than 20,000 [22] people in the United States suspected of distributing copyrighted works, and have settled approximately 2,500 of the cases. There are some suggestions that the RIAA begins legal proceedings without any knowledge of whether they have engaged in copyright infringement or not [23]. Brad Templeton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has called these types of lawsuits spamigation and implied they are done merely to intimidate people.[24]

The RIAA has been criticised in the media after they subpoenaed Gertrude Walton, an 83-year-old grandmother who had died in December of 2004 [25]. Mrs. Walton stood accused of swapping rock, pop and rap songs. The RIAA in 2003 attempted to sue Sarah Seabury Ward, a 66 year-old sculptor residing in Boston, Massachusetts. They alleged that she shared more than 2,000 songs illegally. The RIAA dropped the suit when it was discovered that she was a computer novice. The case was dismissed, but without prejudice.

The RIAA has also been criticised for bringing lawsuits against children, such as 12 year old Brianna LaHara in 2003 [26]. The RIAA also attempted to sue Candy Chan of Michigan, for the alleged actions of her daughter, 13 year old Brittany Chan. Under the threat of a possible defendant's motion for summary judgment and attorneys fees, the RIAA withdrew the case Priority Records v. Chan [27]. [28] When the court ruled in favor of the mother, dismissing the case, the RIAA proceeded to sue her child. However, prosecuting a minor is more difficult; the Michigan federal court required the RIAA to make provision for a guardian ad litem to be appointed to protect the interests of the child, and required the RIAA to be responsible for paying the guardian ad litem. The RIAA failed to submit a workable proposal, and the Court dismissed the case.

The RIAA's recent targeting of students has generated controversy as well. An April 4th story in the MIT campus newspaper The Tech indicates that an RIAA representative stated to Cassi Hunt, an alleged file-sharer, that previously, "the RIAA has been known to suggest that students drop out of college or go to community college in order to be able to afford settlements."[29]

The RIAA has also filed a lawsuit against a woman who has never bought, turned on, or used a personal computer for using an "online distribution system" to obtain unlicensed music files.[30] This occurred again in the Walls case; "I don't understand this," said James Walls. "How can they sue us when we don't even have a computer?" [31]

The RIAA filed a lawsuit against a man who died; they offered the deceased man's family a period of sixty days to grieve the death before they began to depose his children for the suit against his estate.[32]

It has also been claimed that the RIAA may have deliberately inserted white noise into music files on Kazaa, which contravenes Kazaa's terms of service. [33]

Clean Slate Program

Between September 2003 and April 2004, the RIAA operated a system called the Clean Slate Program. It claimed to give those accused of copyright infringement amnesty "on the condition that they refrain from future infringement,"[34] plus delete the infringing material, this was actually an attempt to trick the person into confessing to a crime and signing a statement, making them an easier target in court. The RIAA states this was an educational initiative about illegal file sharing, and was stopped due to increased public awareness in the issues. The program may also have been stopped due to the low number of takers.[35] There is some doubt about whether the RIAA can offer this protection, as it cannot protect from lawsuits by record companies and music publishers.[36] In addition, some Attorneys claimed the offer of amnesty was misleading, and legal documents provided by the RIAA "provides ... no promise not to sue you."[37]

High Profile Lawsuits

In October 1998, the Recording Industry Association of America filed a lawsuit in the Ninth U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco claiming the Diamond Multimedia Rio PMP300 player violated the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act. The Rio PMP300 was significant because it was the second portable consumer MP3 digital audio player released on the market. The three judge panel ruled in favor of Diamond, paving the way for the development of the MP3 portable player market. [38]

On December 7, 1999, the RIAA sued Napster for providing a service which enabled users to download MP3 files off other users' machines. The RIAA claims that Napster "facilitates piracy of music on an unprecedented scale." [39] In 2002 the RIAA also sued Aimster, which provided a similar service. Napster has since been taken over by Roxio and provides a legal download service.

Between 2002 and 2003, the RIAA attempted to get Verizon to disclose the identities of file-sharing customers based on a simple one-page subpoena. In December of 2003, this failed, when a federal appeals court overturned a lower court order. The RIAA claims this procedure was sanctioned by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but the appeals court ruled that the DMCA regulation applies only to data actually hosted by an Internet service provider, rather than data on a customer's computer. The United States Supreme Court let this ruling stand in 2004. As a result, the RIAA must now file individual civil suits against each accused file-sharer, and the ISP and alleged file sharer have more legal avenues for preventing disclosure of their identity, making the entire process much more expensive, slow and complicated.[40]

RIAA has also filed suit in 2006 to enjoin digital satellite radio XM from enabling its subscribers from playing songs it has recorded from its satellite broadcasts.[41] It is also suing several Internet radio stations.[42]

In 2005, Patricia Santangelo made the news by challenging the RIAA's lawsuit against her. Another defendant, Tanya Andersen, a 41 year-old single mother living in Oregon, has filed a countersuit against the RIAA.

In 2006, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the American Civil Liberties Union, Public Citizen, the ACLU of Oklahoma Foundation, and the American Association of Law Libraries submitted an amicus curiae brief in support of the motion for attorneys fees that has been made by Deborah Foster in Capitol Records v. Debbie Foster, in federal court in Oklahoma, requesting that attorney's fees be awarded to the defendant and alleging a pattern of inadequate investigation and abusive legal practices by the RIAA.[43] The RIAA asked the Court not to accept the amicus curiae brief, claiming that the "Movants attempt to paint a false picture of Plaintiffs and the recording industry run amok" [44]

Work Made For Hire controversy

In 1999, Stanley M. Glazier, a Congressional staff attorney, inserted, without public notice or comment, substantive language into the final markup of a "technical corrections" section of copyright legislation, classifying many music recordings as "works made for hire," thereby stripping artists of their copyright interests and transferring those interests to their record labels. Shortly afterwards, Glazier was hired as Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Legislative Counsel for the RIAA, which vigorously defended the change when it came to light. The battle over the disputed provision led to the formation of the Recording Artists' Coalition, which successfully lobbied for repeal of the change.

Legislation and Regulation Today

The RIAA has supported and still supports several pieces of legislation in the United States which it believes help it to protect from copyright infringement. This legislation includes the proposed Digital Content Protection Act of 2006, which is being considered by the Senate. According to PublicKnowledge[45] and the EFF,[46] this would prevent new ways to use media content, and could prevent customers from recording music, even if covered by fair use. This would effectively create a radio broadcast flag rule. The RIAA has supported legislation in the past which also attempted to introduce a radio broadcast flag.

The RIAA is also involved in opposing legislation which harms the free speech rights of artists, such as restrictions on sales of recordings which might be considered controversial or which have the Parental Advisory label.[47]

Cultural references

  • In "Weird Al" Yankovic's single "Don't Download This Song", lyrics refer to how the RIAA sues someone, not caring if they are a "grandma or a seven-year old girl" and that they would treat those who break international copyright law ruthlessly (no matter what they are like).

Similar Organizations

  • The MPAA deals with copyright abuses in the movie industry in the United States. Sometimes the shorthand **AA is used to refer to both the RIAA and the MPAA. On April 1st, 2006, John T. Haller parodized the two organizations on a joke website announcing their fictional merger, introducing another abbreviation for the fictional combined entity: "MAFIAA" (Music And Film Industry Association of America).
  • IFPI, the International Federation of Phonogram and Videogram Producers (website). IFPI represents the recording industry worldwide with over 1450 members in 75 countries and affiliated industry associations in 48 countries. The IFPI works in partnership with similar national organizations, which are listed on the site. IFPI are affiliated with the RIAA.
  • BPI, the British Phonographic Industry (website) is the UK music industry association. They founded the Brit Awards, and give Gold, Silver and Platinum disks for UK-based sales. While they do have an anti-piracy remit, it is more subdued than the RIAA's efforts.
  • FACT, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (website) is the main UK anti-piracy organization , though it mainly deals with video piracy.

References

  1. ^ About the RIAA, RIAA Website
  2. ^ Marketing and Research Data, RIAA Website
  3. ^ Board of the RIAA (RIAA website)
  4. ^ [1],Fatwreck.com
  5. ^ How the RIAA expands its membership, p2pnet
  6. ^ RIAA hacked, faces more opposition, Geek News
  7. ^ Anti-Piracy, RIAA Website
  8. ^ For the Record, for What It's Worth, by Hilary Rosen, the Huffington Post, 4 June 2006
  9. ^ RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use, EFF Deep Links, 15 February 2006
  10. ^ RIAA's next moves in Washington, ZDNet, 26 May 2006
  11. ^ "Capitol Records v. Debbie Foster"
  12. ^ "Priority Records v. Brittany Chan"
  13. ^ "Virgin Records . Tammie Marson"
  14. ^ "RIAA Press Release". Retrieved 2006-06-29.
  15. ^ Examples of Creative Commons samples released include the Fort Minor Remix Contest at ccMixter
  16. ^ RIAA file sharing travesty, p2pnet
  17. ^ Artists receive about 10% royalties for CD sales, and about 5-8% royalties for downloads, of which about 20% goes to the manager. However, before royalties are start to be paid to the artist, the record company takes back the money used for the recording. Sources: How Music Royalties Work, by Lee Ann Obringer, How Stuff Works; and Follow the Money: Who's Really Making the Dough?, by Eric Leach and Bill Henslee, Electronic Musician, 1 November 2001
  18. ^ EMI made $169 million in 2005, according to EMI Net Profit Up 20 Percent for 2005, NewsFactor, 23 May 2006
  19. ^ Source: Compact Disc Minimum Advertised Price Antitrust Litigation Settlement
  20. ^ CD trove is proving short on treasures, Seattle PI, 24 June 2004; and CD settlement delivers duds, Stevens Point Journal, 22 July 2004
  21. ^ Stop the RIAA! petition, EFF; Website, Boycott RIAA; RIAA Free, FreeCulture
  22. ^ "How to Not Get Sued For File Sharing (By Electronic Frontier Foundation)
  23. ^ How the RIAA Litigation Process Works, info.riaalawsuits.us, 7 September 2006
  24. ^ Spamigation and How to Fight It by Dana Blankenhorn, accessed 8-25-06.
  25. ^ I sue dead people, ARS Technica, 4 February 2005
  26. ^ RIAA settles with 12-year-old girl, CNet News, 9 September 2003
  27. ^ Index of Litigation Documents Referred to in Recording Industry vs. The People, Ray Beckerman
  28. ^ Priority Records v. Chan: RIAA Must Get Guardian Ad Litem Appointed for Suit Against 13 Year Old, Digital Music News, 3 June 2006
  29. ^ Run Over by the RIAA Don...t Tap the Glass, Cassi Hunt, MIT Tech, Tuesday, April 4, 2006. Volume 126, Number 15.
  30. ^ "Marie Lindor to Move for Summary Judgment", by Ty Rogers and Ray Beckerman, February 3, 2006
  31. ^ RIAA sues computer-less family, by Anders Bylund, the Ars Technica, 24 April 2006
  32. ^ "RIAA to grieving family: We depose your children in 60 days", August 12, 2006
  33. ^ A user on the TechGuy forums is told of the RIAA's countermeasures
  34. ^ Clean Slate Program, RIAA Website
  35. ^ 1,108 people signed up to the Clean Slate program, according to RIAA Drops 'Clean Slate', by Fraser Lovatt, Digital-Lifestyles.org, 21 April 2004
  36. ^ Fake "Clean Slate" Gone - How About a Real One?, EFF Deep Links, April 17, 2004
  37. ^ Ira Rothken, Consumers Strike Back, Sue RIAA, PCWorld.com, September 11, 2003
  38. ^ Court OKs Diamond Rio MP3 Player, by Elizabeth Clampet, InternetNews.Com, 16 June 1999
  39. ^ Frequently Asked Questions - Napster and Digital Music, RIAA Website
  40. ^ Subpoena Defense
  41. ^ XM Faces The Music In RIAA Copyright Suit, by Joseph Palenchar, TWICE, 22 May 2006
  42. ^ RIAA sues Internet radio stations, Out-Law.com, July 2001
  43. ^ EFF, ACLU, American Association of Law Libraries, Public Citizen, ACLU of Oklahoma, Come to Aid of Deborah Foster, File Amicus Brief in Support
  44. ^ RIAA-lawyer claims the brief accuses the recording instustry to run amok
  45. ^ "New and Improved" Draft Broadcast Flag Bill: This Time for TV and Radio, by Alex Curtis, PublicKnowledge, 20 January 2006
  46. ^ New Senate Broadcast Flag Bill Would Freeze Fair Use, EFF Deep Links, 20 January, 2006
  47. ^ Freedom of Speech, RIAA Website

See also

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