 |
Thanks for being interested in the music industry and our positions on various issues. We get many requests from students and others for information for papers and other research needs. We’re happy to help and share our perspective. Unfortunately, we can’t always answer every question. So below is a list of commonly asked questions and hopefully insightful answers. Please take a look. We hope you find it useful and informative. Good luck!
1. What exactly does the RIAA do? Who does the organization represent?
The RIAA is an organization committed to helping the music business thrive. Our goal is to foster a business and legal climate that protects the ability of our members – the record companies that create, manufacture and/or distribute some 90 percent of all legitimate sound recordings produced and sold in the United States – to invest in the next generation of music.
In support of this mission, we work to protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the First Amendment rights of artists; conduct consumer, industry and technical research; and monitor and review state and federal laws, regulations and policies. We also certify Gold, Platinum, Multi-Platinum™, and Diamond sales awards, as well as Los Premios De Oro y Platino™, an award celebrating Latin music sales.
2. What is the RIAA's official stance on digital music piracy?
Plain and simple: piracy is bad news. While the term is commonly used, “piracy” doesn’t even begin to describe what is taking place. When you go online and download songs without permission, you are stealing. The illegal downloading of music is just as wrong as shoplifting from a local convenience store – and the impact on those who create music and bring it to fans is equally devastating. For every artist you can name at the top of the Billboard music charts, there is a long line of songwriters, sound engineers, and label employees who help create those hits. They all feel the pain of music theft.
The law is quite clear here, and frankly, legal downloading is easy and doesn’t cost much. Record companies have licensed hundreds of digital partners offering download and subscription services, cable and satellite radio services, Internet radio webcasting, legitimate peer-to-peer (P2P) services, video-on-demand, podcasts, CD kiosks and digital jukeboxes, mobile products such as ringbacks, ringtunes, wallpapers, audio and video downloads and more.
3. How much money does the recording industry lose from piracy?
There are two categories to consider here: losses from street piracy – the manufacture and sale of counterfeit CDs – and losses from online piracy.
One credible analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation concludes that global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers' earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes. For copies of the report, please visit www.ipi.org. As you can imagine, calculating loses for online piracy is a difficult task. We do know that the pirate marketplace currently far dwarfs the legal marketplace, and when that happens, that means investment in new music is compromised.
All the same, it’s important to note that across the board, piracy is a very real threat to the livelihoods of not only artists and record label employees but also thousands of less celebrated people in the music industry – from sound engineers and technicians to warehouse workers and record store clerks. Piracy undermines the future of music by depriving the industry of the resources it needs to find and develop new talent and drains millions of dollars in tax revenue from local communities and their residents.
4. What kind of message are you trying to send with your lawsuits against individuals? What do you hope to accomplish?
The ultimate goal with all our anti-piracy efforts is to protect the ability of the recording industry to invest in new bands and new music and to give legal online services a chance to flourish. That’s why we educate. That’s why record companies license music to legal services. And that’s why, when necessary, we enforce our rights through the legal system.
Just as we must hold accountable the businesses that encourage theft online, individuals who engage in illegal downloading must also know there are consequences to their actions. If you violate the law and steal from record companies, musicians, songwriters and everyone else involved in making music, you can be held accountable.
With so many great legal music options available, there is really no excuse for music theft. Fans have a choice: pay a little now or a lot more later.
5. Don’t you think some people are always going to download music illegally, no matter how many people get sued?
Of course. We're realistic. As an industry, we have lived with street piracy for years. Similarly, there will always be a degree of piracy on the Internet. It's not realistic to wipe it out entirely but instead to bring it to a level of manageable control so a legitimate marketplace can really flourish.
Lawsuits are just one piece of our overall effort to discourage illegal downloading and encourage fans to turn to legal music alternatives. Yes, we enforce our rights against people who steal music. We also work hard to educate consumers about the law and about the many legal ways to get music online. Because we know the best way to beat piracy is to offer fans a compelling legal alternative, record companies are aggressively licensing music to a great many services – from download and subscription models to Internet radio to legitimate P2P and more. Giving these legal online services a chance to flourish is a driving factor in almost everything we do.
6. Do you feel that it is fair to file lawsuits against downloaders? Why or Why not?
Suing individuals was by no means our first choice. Unfortunately, without the threat of consequences, far too many people were just not changing their behavior. Education alone was not enough to stem the extraordinary growth of illegal P2P use. While we have been filing lawsuits against individuals since September 2003, our first preference continues to be targeting the businesses that encourage and profit from theft. That said, it is critical that we simultaneously send a message to individuals that engaging in the theft of music is illegal.
If a store owner catches someone shoplifting merchandise, you can bet that owner takes action – just as he or she should. Our lawsuits against individuals engaged in music theft are no different. Illegal downloading is not a victimless crime: thousands of record label employees have been laid off, hundreds of artists have been cut from label rosters, numerous record stores are closing throughout the country, and due to declining sales, record companies are finding their ability to invest in new artists at risk.
With so many great legal ways to enjoy music online, there's no excuse for downloading music illegally. That's why we will continue to take a tough line against people who steal music. It's theft, it's illegal and there can be real consequences. Legal downloading doesn't cost much. Every fan has a choice: pay a little now or a lot more later.
7. Why are only select people being sued and how are they selected?
When you log onto a P2P network, your P2P software has a default setting that automatically informs the network of your user name and the names and sizes of the files on your hard drive that are available for copying. Because all this information is publicly available to anyone on the network, it’s relatively easy to look for – and find – users who are offering to “share” copyrighted music files. The networks could not work if this were not the case. Given the huge number of P2P users, we use software to search the network for infringing files, similar to the way other users search the network.
When we file a “John Doe” lawsuit against an individual engaged in illegal file sharing, we have no personal information about that individual. The complaint is filed against the Internet account holder, who is anonymous to us at the time. So anyone – and everyone –
engaged in music theft is at risk for a lawsuit.
Bottom line: The best way to avoid "being caught" is to abide by the law. With all the exciting legal options available to fans, there are plenty of easy, affordable ways to get music online and do so legally.
8. Why has the RIAA chosen to specifically pursue university students?
First of all, it’s important to remember that anyone engaged in music theft is at risk for a lawsuit.
That said, the piracy habits of college students remain especially and disproportionately problematic – despite real progress by the music industry on other fronts. According to some recent surveys, more than half of the nation’s college students frequently download music and movies illegally from unlicensed P2P networks. That’s a statistic we just cannot ignore.
As a result, we have stepped up our efforts to address college piracy across the board by significantly expanding our deterrence and education programs, continuing our push for legal music offerings on campuses, and advocating technological measures that block or curb piracy on college networks.
We know that college students are some of the most avid music fans. That’s great news. The music habits and customs they develop now are likely to stay with students for life. Therefore it’s especially important for us to educate them about the law; the harm suffered by musicians, labels and retailers alike when music is stolen; and the great legal ways to enjoy music online. Like students, we are huge fans of music and want to see a music community capable of developing exciting new bands.
9. How, technically, are you able to distinguish between university students and other file sharers?
When we originally file a “John Doe” lawsuit, we know only the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the P2P user and the user's Internet Service Provider (ISP). Since universities operate their own networks, we can distinguish university network users – the majority of which are usually students – from users of commercial ISPs.
10. What does the RIAA consider the university’s responsibility to be in curtailing file sharing? What happens when a university does not cooperate in mediating offenses by students?
Largely due to the work of the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities, we have made great progress in addressing piracy on campuses across the country. We have worked hard to forge collaborative relationships with campus administrators, and we regard our efforts with the university community as a partnership. For our part, we have offered universities a slate of educational tools and guidance, legal services, and an introduction to technologies that can reduce illegal file-sharing.
We believe that university leaders have a responsibility to acknowledge campus piracy, to take steps to prevent the theft from occurring in the first place and to demonstrate leadership in teaching students that music has value and there are right and wrong ways to acquire it. When college administrators are more proactive in addressing the campus piracy problem, it usually means fewer incidences of illegal downloading on those school networks and less chance that students will get in trouble for breaking the law.
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), administrators are obligated to provide copyright holders with information about users of the university network who have violated the law. Also keep in mind that working together to address this problem is actually mutually beneficial: illegal file sharing drains bandwidth, costing schools money and slowing computer connections for students trying to use the network for legitimate academic purposes.
11. How is downloading music different from copying a personal CD?
Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use. We want fans to enjoy the music they bought legally. But both copying CDs to give to friends and downloading music illegally rob the people who created that music of compensation for their work. When record companies are deprived of critical revenue, they are forced to lay off employees, drop artists from their rosters, and sign fewer bands. That’s bad news for the music industry, but ultimately bad news for fans as well. We all benefit from a vibrant music industry committed to nurturing the next generation of talent.
For more on what the law says about copying CDs, click HERE
12. If people start paying to download and are charged per song, who decides how much a song costs and where that money goes?
Each legitimate music service has its own licensing agreements with the individual record companies. These agreements are likely to set many of those terms.
No matter which service, it's a great value. Remember, you can pay a little now to go legal or a lot more later if you get caught stealing music.
13. Should devices such as CD burners be outlawed since they are an easy way of making illegal copies of others creative efforts?
Devices and technology are not the problem. It’s when people use technology to break the law that we take issue.
Again and again, we have embraced the technological advances that have allowed millions upon millions of people around the world to enjoy the music we create. We want fans to enjoy their iPods, CD burners, and other devices, but we want them to do so responsibly, respectfully, and within the law.
|
