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Recording Industry Association of America

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The Recording Industry Association of America (or RIAA) is a 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, which the RIAA claims "create, manufacture and/or distribute approximately 90% of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States.".

The RIAA was formed in 1952 primarily to administer the RIAA equalization curve, 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 are:

  1. to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists;
  2. to perform research about the music industry;
  3. to monitor and review relevant laws, regulations and policies.

Company structure and Sales

The RIAA is led by Mitch Bainwol, who has been Chairman and CEO since 2003. He is assisted by Cary Sherman, the President of the Board of Directors. The board of directors consists of 26 members of the board, drawn mostly from the big four members of the RIAA.

The RIAA represents over 1,600 member labels, which are private corporate entities such as record labels and distributors, and which collectively create and distribute about 90% of recorded music sold in the US. The largest and most influential of the members are the "Big Four".

The total annual net income from members of the RIAA is reported to be $11.5 billion, reflecting a decline since a high of $14.5 billion in 1996.

Sales certification

The RIAA operates an award program for albums which sell a large number of copies. The program originally began in 1958, with a Gold Award for singles and albums which reach US$ 1 million sales. The criteria was changed in 1975 to be based on the number of copies sold, with singles and albums selling 500,000 copies awarded the Gold Award. In 1976, a Platinum Award was added for one million sales, and in 1999 a Diamond Award for ten million sales. The awards are open to both RIAA members and non-members.

On www.riaa.com, under the gold & platinum-link they have a searchable but poorly updated database, where you can search artists and records that went gold/platinum. The RIAA also operates a similar program for Spanish language music sales, called Los Premios Awards.

Digital sales certification

In 2004, the RIAA added a branch of certification for legal downloads, such as files downloaded via iTunes. In 2006, digital ringtones were added to this branch of certification. The certification criteria for the digital downloads is currently as follows:
Silver: 100,000
Gold: 500,000
Platinum: 1,000,000
Multi-Platinum: 2,000,000
Diamond: 10,000,000

Efforts against file-sharing

The Recording Industry Association of America is a fierce opponent of copyright infringement through file-sharing, The organization particularly targets music files distributed via the Internet using peer-to-peer software, a practice which the RIAA claims results in a reduction of profits of $4.2 billion per year for the music industry worldwide, which supposedly harms consumers, record labels, retailers and artists.

Hilary Rosen, the RIAA's president and chief executive officer from 1998 to 2003, was an outspoken critic of peer to peer file sharing , and under her direction, the RIAA waged an aggressive legal campaign trying to eliminate 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.

The RIAA sees lawsuits as one way to combat the problem of Internet-based copyright infringement. 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..

As of July 2006, the RIAA has brought lawsuits against around 20,000 people in the United States suspected of distributing copyrighted works, and have settled approximately 2,500 of the cases.

Definition of copyright infringement

The RIAA and its member groups argue that Internet distribution of music, without the consent of the owner of the copyright to 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. This statement is valid for starting artists, as their profits depend heavily on album sales. Established artists receive most of their profits from their performances, tours or concerts.

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 prevent the music file from being copied. 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.

Selection of defendants

The RIAA names defendants based on ISP identification of the subscriber associated with an IP address, and as such do not know any additional information about a person before they sue. After an Internet subscriber's identity is discovered, but before an individual lawsuit is filed, the subscriber is typically offered an opportunity to settle. The standard settlement is a payment of several thousand dollars to the RIAA, and an agreement not to engage in file-sharing of RIAA music.

The RIAA's policy and method of suing individuals for copyright infringement is continually criticized. Brad Templeton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has called the RIAA's lawsuits "spamigation and implied they are done merely to intimidate people.

The RIAA typically seeks $750 statutory damages per song file. In the Brooklyn lawsuit UMG v. Lindor, the defendant argued that the RIAA's damage theory was unconstitutional, because it sought 1071 times the actual 70 cents reduction of profits per song (the prevailing wholesale price of a download). The court ruled that this defense was not frivolous, was based upon case law and legal scholarship, and deserved to be heard.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union and Public Citizen oppose the ability of the RIAA and other companies to "strip Internet users of anonymity without allowing them to challenge the order in court".

The RIAA's criticized methods of identifying individual users has led to the issuing of subpoenas to a dead grandmother,, an elderly computer novice, a woman with multiple sclerosis, and even those without any computer at all. Sometimes the RIAA continues to sue even in these cases, or seeks to discontinue without prejudice (and thereby avoid compensating the defense for legal fees).

After learning that one alleged copyright infringer had died, the RIAA offered the deceased man's family a period of sixty days to grieve the man's death before they began to depose members of his family for the suit against his estate.

The RIAA has also brought lawsuits against children, some as young as 12.

As of February, 2007 the RIAA began sending letters accusing internet users of sharing files and directing them to a web site, (http://www.p2plawsuits.com/), where they can make "discount" settlements payable by credit card. The letters go on to say that anyone not settling will have lawsuits brought against them. Typical settlements are upwards of $3,000. This new strategy was formed because the RIAA's legal fees were cutting into the income from settlements.

Settlement programs

Between September 2003 and April 2004, the RIAA, through its Clean Slate Program, claimed to give those accused of copyright infringement amnesty "on the condition that they refrain from future infringement, plus delete the infringing material.

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.

There is some doubt about whether the RIAA can offer this protection, critics have pointed out that this program may not have offered any protection from lawsuits by record companies and music publishers. 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.

A lawsuit brought in California state court, Parke v. RIAA, alleged the RIAA had committed fraudulent business practices by offering the program.

The "Clean Slate" program is now discontinued.

In February, 2007, the RIAA launched an 'early settlement program' directed to ISP's and to colleges and universities, urging them to pass along letters to subscribers and students offering early "settlements", prior to the disclosure of their identities, which, if accepted, would save the RIAA the expense of litigation to procure the identities. The settlement letters urged ISP's to preserve evidence for the benefit of the RIAA and invited the students and subscribers to visit an RIAA website for the purpose of entering into a "discount settlement" payable by credit card.. By March 2007, the focus had shifted from ISP's to colleges and universities.

Calculation of damages

In press reports, the RIAA makes the assertion that every unauthorized copy of a song represents a lost sale. This claim is highly criticized due to the fact that a single download of a song may not correspond to the loss of a potential sale, and because this metric conflicts with the economic law of supply and demand. A large number of studies conducted since the RIAA began its campaign against peer-to-peer file-sharing have concluded that losses incurred per download range from negligible to very small.

Cooperation among record label plaintiffs

In one file-sharing case, the RIAA has been referred by the defendants as "a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and of public policy, by tying their copyrights to each other, collusively litigating and settling all cases together, and by entering into an unlawful agreement among themselves to prosecute and to dispose of all cases in accordance with a uniform agreement, and through common lawyers, thus overreaching the bounds and scope of whatever copyrights they might have". In Arista v. Limewire this was as well alleged by the defendants and referred to in the defendants counterclaim.

See, e.g. UMG v. Lindor, where the RIAA has moved to "strike" those accusations. The motion to strike the charges is pending, and is scheduled to be taken under consideration by the Court on October 2, 2007. See also Arista vs. Limewire for a detailed overview.

In February 2008 it became known that the RIAA has been withholding roughly $400 million from artists for several years now. The RIAA gained the money through lawsuits claiming to defend the rights of artists, although none of the artists whose music was 'illegally' downloaded have received any of the settlement money.

Notable file-sharing lawsuits

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. In 2002 the RIAA also sued Aimster, which provided a similar service. Napster became bankrupt during the case; and has since been taken over by Roxio and provides a download service which is sanctioned by the RIAA.

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. Verizon attorney Sarah Deutsch challenged the subpoena's validity on procedural and privacy grounds. 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 declined to review this ruling 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. The court opinion was written by Judge Douglas Ginsburg.

In 2005, Patricia Santangelo made the news by challenging the RIAA's lawsuit against her. While she succeeded in getting the lawsuit against her dismissed two years later, her children were then sued. A default judgment entered against her daughter Michelle for $30,750 for failing to respond to the lawsuit, was subsequently vacated.

Another defendant, Tanya Andersen, a 41-year-old single mother living in Oregon, filed counterclaims against the RIAA including a RICO charge. The RIAA requested deposition of her 10 year-old daughter.. Subsequently the RIAA dropped the case, leaving open only the question of attorneys fees and the RIAA's liability under Ms. Andersen's counterclaims.. Thereafter, Ms. Andersen sued the RIAA, the record company plaintiffs, Safenet (MediaSentry), and Settlement Support Center LLC, for malicious prosecution, , subsequently amending her complaint to turn the case into a class action.

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. 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. On February 6, 2007, the attorney's fee motion was granted. On July 16, 2007, the Court ordered the RIAA to pay Ms. Foster $68,685.23 in attorneys fees.

On December 21 2006, the RIAA filed a lawsuit for Russian owned and operated website AllOfMP3.com in the amount of $1.65 trillion. This number was derived from multiplying 11 million songs with statutory damages of $150,000 per song. The RIAA could not obtain jurisdiction over this Russian website.

A critical case, which may not only determine the fate of the RIAA's litigation campaign, but also impact the scope of copyright across the internet, is Elektra v. Barker. In that case, Tenise Barker, a 29-year-old nursing student in the Bronx, moved to dismiss the RIAA's complaint for lack of specificity, and on the ground that merely "making available" does not constitute a copyright infringement. In opposing Ms. Barker's motion, the RIAA argued that "making available" is indeed a copyright infringement. Upon learning of the RIAA's argument, which sought to expand copyright law, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the U.S. Internet Industry Association, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) submitted amicus curiae briefs supporting Ms. Barker's motion and rebutting the RIAA's argument. The Motion Picture Association of America, in turn, submitted a brief supporting the RIAA. The U.S. Department of Justice submitted a "Statement of Interest" refuting one argument made by the EFF, but taking no position on the "making available" issue; the DOJ stated that it has never prosecuted anyone for "making available". The case was argued before Judge Kenneth M. Karas in Manhattan federal court on January 26, 2007, who indicated that he will decide the "making available" issue. As of September 2, 2007, the parties are awaiting the Court's decision. Meanwhile, the same issue has been briefed in a more recent case, Warner v. Cassin, also in the Southern District of New York, but in the Westchester Division.

In November, 2006, a Judge in a Brooklyn Federal court upheld the legal theory behind a defense claiming that the RIAA's damages theory — which calls for aggregating statutory damages of $750 per song in its lawsuits — is unconstitutional, since the record companies' actual damages are less than $0.70 per song.

On Oct. 4, 2007 Jammie Thomas's case filed against for illegal sharing of 24 songs on Kazaa was adjudicated, with a $222,000 ($9,250 per song) verdict awarded to the RIAA.

In Texas, July 2007, Rhonda Crain (Sony v. Crain) sought leave to add a counterclaim against the RIAA for knowingly engaging in "one or more overt acts of unlawful private investigation" in the RIAA case against Crain.

In an Oklahoma case, Capitol Records v. Deborah Foster, 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. The Court subsequently ruled that defendant was entitled to be reimbursed for her reasonable attorneys fees, since the RIAA's pursuit of its case was, at best, "marginal", and was being pursued to extract a settlement from someone who was clearly known not to be the direct infringer. The Court noted that the mere fact that Ms. Foster was a person who paid for an internet access account was not a basis for a copyright infringement lawsuit against her. Ms. Foster's motion for attorneys fees had been 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.

Other instances in which the RIAA was known to have been forced to back out of a case to avoid a loss, are Priority Records v. Brittany Chan in Michigan, Virgin Records v. Tammie Marson in California, and Elektra v. Wilke in Illinois.

The evidence of the effectiveness of the suits is not conclusive. Recent research suggests that the lawsuits have reduced the number of files large file-sharers offer but have had limited effect on those who only offer small number of files (typically less than 1000) and have had negligible effect on general availability of files at any random time.

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.

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

The "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 prevent copyright infringement. This legislation includes the proposed Digital Content Protection Act of 2006, which is being considered by the United States Senate. According to PublicKnowledge and the EFF, 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 involves 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.

Cultural references

  • "Weird Al" Yankovic's single "Don't Download This Song" satirizes the RIAA's lawsuits against copyright infringers.
  • The March 4, 2007 FoxTrot strip also satirized the RIAA's lawsuits, where Jason tried to teach his iguana Quincy to download music, because "it's one thing for them to go after single moms, widows, grandmothers, dead people and children... but sue an iguana?! That'd be insane!
  • The Machinae Supremacy song "Legion of Stoopid" refers to the company as the "Recording Industry Assholes of America".
  • MC Lars's single "Download This Song" criticized the RIAA and the music industry in general, mentioning the RIAA's lawsuits against "little kids downloading hit songs."

See also

References

External links



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Last updated on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 09:38:22 PDT (GMT -0700)
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