For the euphony industry , 2003 was a class of many milestones . On one hand , Metallica ’s 1993 video for " Binge and Purge " was certified 15 meter Platinum , making it the highest certify medicine video in history . On the other hand , a 12 - year - old girl , Brianna LaHara , joined 260 other people who weresuedfor download copyrighted music from an Internet service ; LaHara became the first to answer the judicial proceeding , settling for $ 2,000 .
What ’s the connectedness between these two landmarks ? The mathematical group that give out the award to the metal veterans was the same one that process the preteenager . It ’s all part of the often controversial saga of the Recording Industry Association of America ( RIAA ) , the trade wind group that tirelessly promotes the medicine diligence and ruthlessly policesmusic plagiarization .
As a trade association , the RIAA looks after the interests of the three bad record labels , Sony , Universal and Warner , and of hundreds of smaller recording label and distributor . Its phallus bring out more than 85 percent of the music that is legally sold [ root : RIAA ] . RIAA activities on behalf of the music industry admit the pursual :
The RIAA got its starting in 1952 and made a splash in 1958 when it present its first Gold disc [ rootage : RIAA ] . Since then , the medicine industry has had to pilot a retentive stint of bloodless water as transcription engineering has changed and changed again . After all , nobody today listens to medicine the way folk did in the 1950s . From legal digital downloads to music piracy , the association has its work swerve out for it as the industry continues to reinvent itself .
The RIAA and the Changing Music Industry
It was n’t all that long ago that listening to music meant buying a vinyl recording , lay it on a spinning lazy Susan and dropping a needle into its vallecula . Then camecompact platter , first available in 1982 , which used a digital , not analog , method of recording and reproduce sound [ beginning : Beschizza ] . Having music in a digital formatting made it easy to create a perfect – and perfectly spare – copy of a transcription , with no loss of quality . The RIAA saw that imitative candle could chip at a big fix in appendage ' profits .
Then , iTunes and other online euphony stores came along . Downloads quickly begin to contend with strong-arm recordings in terms of sales . In 2010 , as many digital downloads were sold as strong-arm recordings [ source : RIAA ] . Today , more than 11 million licensed digital recordings can be had at the click of a shiner button . What ’s more , a exclusive striking can generate everything from DVD to mobile downloads to ringtones .
The RIAA has prove to keep up with all these dizzying changes . They pull together statistic to track sales in the various format – include cd , cassettes and mp3 downloads – by unit and value . For model , in 2011 , 1.3 billion digital downloads of singles were sell for $ 1.5 billion , while 241 million CDs were sold for $ 3.1 billion [ germ : RIAA ] . The RIAA also conducts special bailiwick about things like the economic impact of the medicine business , and its databases nearly track trend in various genres of music .
As applied science has change , the RIAA has collaborated with other chemical group to create criterion for music recording , include the espouse [ origin : RIAA ] :
Another more recent addition to the RIAA to - do list is overseeing streaming music services . Internet services like Pandora and Spotify notch on music to customers in a form that they can listen to but not copy . These companies pay a royalty for every song they use . radiocommunication stations of course bid a similar divine service , but pay a much low-spirited royalty . It ’s up to the RIAA to talk terms with the well out companies and work out a fair level of recompense [ source : Sisario ] .
In addition to these workaday matters , the RIAA has had to grapple with one forward-looking - twenty-four hours issue that bewilder a threat to the very being of the industry : euphony piracy .
The RIAA and Music Piracy
Burning a CD from your computeris laughably easy . It also could be illegal . Digital recording has madecounterfeitingand sharing technically wide-eyed , but only the owner of the copyright can de jure make a copy . Any other copying shine into the sometimes murky territory of medicine piracy .
As the RIAA readily points out , the penalties for stealing copyright material are no joke . Even if you do n’t pirate transcript for commercial purposes , give an unauthorized copy intend you could spend five year in the poky and pay a $ 250,000 amercement . You could also be the target of a civil suit , with penalization begin at $ 750 per song [ source : RIAA ] .
If that sound serious , it ’s because piracy is a aliveness - or - death issue for the platter industry . Today , only 37 percent of all medicine is obtain legally ; the ease is steal . Record companies and artist turn a loss an estimate $ 12.5 billion a yr to copyright theft . Since 1999 , medicine sales have plummet 53 percent , diving from $ 14.6 billion in 1999 to $ 7.0 billion in 2011 . From 2004 to 2009 , medicine pirate downloaded something like 30 billion Song illegally , a gust to the manufacture that has be 70,000 Americans their line of work . The RIAA roll up statistics like these to emphasize the gravity of the situation [ source : RIAA ] .
And these financial losses injure more than just the tummy . musician , the very folk music that fans idolize , lose the income to which their endowment ennoble them . When record companies are impoverish of taxation , they do n’t have the money to invest in new talent . Performers who might have made it big never get the hazard .
Who are the perpetrator in music piracy ? Here are a few of the actions that constitute thieving :
Enough people have broken the regulation that the RIAA has study natural process to protect the industry .
How the RIAA Has Fought Piracy
insure the piracy job developing , the RIAA support the enforcement of the No Electronic Theft ( NET ) legislation that was clear back in 1997 . The law made thieving of copyright material a crime even if no commercial-grade use was intended . That put medicine fans on notice , bribe many continued to suppose that sharing euphony or bite CDs was OK .
Napster , which debuted in 1999 , raised the problem to a fresh floor . A so - called peer - to - equal ( P2P ) help , Napster rent user upload and download medicine , copyright or no copyright . At its peak , Napster yield its 25 million user access to 80 million songs , most of them stolen [ beginning : CNBC ] . The RIAA litigate in December 1999 , and Napster eventually went bankrupt .
But medicine fans were hooked on loose music , and the RIAA found itself in a game of Whac - A - Mole . Napster was followed by like services : Aimster and AudioGalaxy , thenLimeWire , Morpheus , eDonkey and BitTorrent . The RIAA joined in cases against two of these services , Grokster and Streamcast , in 2003 . This judicial proceeding reached theU.S. Supreme Court , which ruled in June 2005 that anyone boost right of first publication theft can be held responsible . The RIAA sued Kazaa , another popular P2P connection , in 2006 . That service no longer exists , but efforts to fudge the jurisprudence continued . A suit against the file - sharing service LimeWire in 2010 was another RIAA victory .
The RIAA shake up up the medicine world even more when it began to charge otherlawsuitsagainst person . set out in 2003 , the RIAA sued more than 30,000 people [ generator : Kravets ] . Most , including 12 - year - sure-enough Brianna LaHara , settle down out of motor lodge , but had to give several thousand dollar sign for upload or downloading copyrighted music . A few run to trial , recede and were hit with prominent judgments .
Many of the quarry of the suits did n’t even make love they were offend the law . Some thought that , by pay a subscription fee to a P2P military service , they were lawfully entitled to apply it to divvy up digital tunes . Regardless of whether ignorance of the law was a valid alibi , RIAA official tell they were trying to raise consciousness of medicine plagiarisation and slow the thievery of copyright material . They point out that before the suits began , only 35 percent of multitude bang that sharing copyrighted music from unauthorised sources was illegal [ source : RIAA ] .
heated up charge were hurled at the RIAA . Was the association unfairly aim a few uninformed music devotee ? Were the penalties it sought unjust ? One woman was fin $ 222,000 for uploading song to the Internet [ source : Sandoval ] . A single female parent faced a $ 500,000 judgment [ source : EFF.org ] . In the face of mounting unfavorable judgment , the RIAA stopped file most lawsuits against individuals in 2008 .
In the past few years , legal euphony gross sales have increased and the percentage of substance abuser lawlessly sharing tune has expend , but piracy stay on a huge problem . It has become even gentle to copy music as high - capacity DVD discs , flash cause and external hard drives have made transferring thousands of songs a breeze . Digital entrepot locker and anon. file communion serve have open new avenues for piracy . However , the RIAA has set about to focus on education rather than litigation to seek to staunch the lunar time period .
The RIAA’s Educational Role
Having get the attending of potential music plagiarizer with itslawsuits , the RIAA moved on to ballyhoo the benefits of sound euphony . The mathematical group has puzzle out to highlight the grandness of euphony in footing of economic system , job and culture .
Most medicine lovers interpret that larceny is awry and that creative person merit to be right . They ’re less clear about what ’s sound and what ’s not – when does ripping a CD mean ripping off a musician ? An important goal of the RIAA is to teach lover about what constitutes plagiarization and how they can avoid digress into illegal activity .
Since young masses are a huge part of the euphony food market , the RIAA targets its education programs toward nipper in schools . The group force its " Music Rules ! " curriculum for third to 8th grader . The curriculum teach young citizenry to respect rational property rights of all kinds , including those of musician . The RIAA also put out a booklet that explains the serious consequences of breaking the law by committing plagiarism . It provides speakers and boost debate about the issue .
The RIAA has also focus efforts on college , where single file sharing and other build of euphony piracy are common . Today , colleges are expect by practice of law to have plans in berth to minimize piracy , and the RIAA sends notice to school when their computing machine web are used to download large quantity of copyright material from the cyberspace .
Also , sympathize that the content of euphony song lyrics – which can be downright scandalous – can be a serious concern for parents , the RIAA initiate its Parental Advisory Label in 1985 . Working with the National Parent Teacher Association , the group amount up with criterion that alert parents to sexually explicit words , substantial language and references to violence on record album . The Advisory Label is a pecker that parents can use to guide children for whom such material would be inappropriate .
One of the goals of issuing the consultive label was to channelise offcensorship . The RIAA stands up for artists ' right to originative expression , free from arbitrary standards . A musician or criminal record companionship , cognisant of the Parental Advisory Label , may make up one’s mind to change a vocal ’s lyric poem , but the decision is up to them .
Aside from all of these education endeavour , credibly the well - know political platform run by the RIAA is the Gold and Platinum Record awarding , which recognize the most democratic music of the day .
The RIAA’s Gold and Platinum Records
R&B / rose hip - hop artist Akon once say " go Platinum makes me experience , certified . I ’m a legitimate artist " [ seed : RIAA ] . It ’s the RIAA that tracks and certifies book sales for the purpose of awarding desired Gold and Platinum awarding .
The theme really goes back to 1942 , when isthmus leader Glenn Miller was awarded an informal " gold " record by his recording label , RCA , for selling a million copies of " Chattanooga Choo Choo " [ generator : RIAA ] . In 1958 , the RIAA established an prescribed Gold Record programme , making the appellative a trademark . Perry Como ’s " becharm a Falling Star " was the first Gold bingle . Since then , more than 8,000 recordings by artists ranging from Aretha Franklin to Shania Twain have received Gold authentication . Possessing a Gold Record has become a coveted accomplishment for melodious artist .
The criteria for the honour have turn more complicated over the year [ source : RIAA ] :
track record troupe that think they ’ve earned Gold have to request and make up for an audited account by an accounting house hired by the RIAA . The auditors reckon up the gross sales of CDs , vinyl track record and cassettes through stores , record clubs , mail order houses and cyberspace fulfillment .
New soma of medicine have meant new awards . Music videos were honored with Gold and Platinum honour beginning in 1981 . In 2001 , specialOroandPlatinoawards were produce to honor top betray Spanish oral communication recording , signifying sales of 100,000 and 200,000 record , respectively . An award for digital singles releases got its start in 2004 . And in 2006 , the RIAA added a Gold award for top - sell ringtones as music went mobile [ source : RIAA ] .
The vitality of the Gold and Platinum Program , with some albums pass on Gold condition within a calendar month of event , indicates that in spite of its problems , the music manufacture , as represented by the RIAA , is still alive and recoil .
Lots More Information
research this article was interesting to me because I ’m both a bearer of copyright – on books , article and e - books – and a sea robber . Without thinking , I ’ve made music compilations for friends and replicate compact disc that I ’ve borrowed . I ’ve never hold out in for file cabinet sharing or uploading , but I ’m not entirely innocent .
Since I stand on both sides of the fencing , I can see both side . Everybody like to get something for nothing . Some contain that free communion of music and other cloth makes for a more originative surroundings . At the same time , creative person and writers merit recompense . They ca n’t exercise for nothing . And the more money that ’s run out from the market place , the less inducement there is to produce high - calibre material .
A balance needs to be reach . Music fans have to empathize that there ’s no free lunch . Is give a clam for your preferred song really such a burden ?
