The Role Played By RIAA In Music Downloads.
RIAA is an acronym of Recording Industry Association of America. The association is a groping of various large companies who deal with the recording and music distribution in the United States of America. In the 1950’s the primary concern of this association was maintaining the quality of music. However now the focus has shifted to the copyright protection which has become the main thrust area of the association.
Piracy in any form will not be allowed says RIAA. There had been reports about people making profitable use of copyright protected music. People are inclined to make multiple copies of music, after downloading them from the net. Later on the music is burnt into multiple CDs and sold commercially. Consequently the music industry sustains huge losses in revenue says RIAA. Everybody is barred from downloading any music without permission, and severe actions would be taken against the violators.
RIAA is rigorously against P2P music sharing. It took initiative in the year 2000 to restrict the P2P trading of music. However after showing significant decrease it continues to exist today also. RIAA has not relented in its war against P2P sharing. It is not only the traders but down unto the individual level that prohibition against P2P music sharing exists.
Though RIAA is doing all in its power to protect misuse of music protected by copyright but the activities in this direction by RIAA are not welcome by everyone. Those opposing have brought out that number of CD’s sold was more when online services such as Napster were available. Doubts have therefore been expressed about the stated aims of RIAA to help the artists and recording studios. RIAA has also been blamed for putting the artists to a loss who are paid very less payment for sale of CDs while they themselves make big gains.
However in its zeal to carryout its campaign RIAA has hurt its own credibility. People have been very much dismayed by its legal action such as the one against a kid of about 12 years, a woman in her 60’s not able to use computers, or one against an ageing woman of 83 years. Such legal actions have largely undermined the trustworthiness of RIAA..
In accordance with popular wish RIAA enacted a law that for past acts of illegal downloading of music no action will be taken against people. However they must assure that they will not continue to do so in future. It was seen by many as the right approach but in a year’s time the law was depreciated.
RIAA also holds firm opinion that pirated music hurts the artists, because their music is played on low grade CDs and without their official consent. The consent here refers to legally buying the music. “It makes people listen to poor quality music that was actually developed with so much hard work” is the firm opinion of RIAA.
Another area of activity by RIAA apart from copyright protection, is keeping track of sale of records. It also awards “Gold” or “Platinum” labels depending on the number of CDs sold. It may be summarized in the end that existence of RIAA has contributed much to keeping the business of music industry good and clean.
Tags: c, Computers, E, entertainment, f, free music download, free music downloads, i, ipod, legal music download, m, mp3, Music, music download, music_and_movies, n, p, r, u