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Essay: RIAA's disregard for its customers

The Recording Industry Association of America has repeatedly shown to its customers that the most important thing to them is not consumer satisfaction but financial rewards. The organization continually fights online downloading of its members’ artists’ work using methods that does not promote confidence in the system. Instead of appearing as tyrants and fighting a one-sided battle, the RIAA should be focusing not only on issuing lawsuits for copyright infringement but also working towards a compromise between the music labels and the consumers that want a method of easy and affordable online music purchases.

In 1998, Congress passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, DCMA, to combat the issues associated with online copyright infringement by users. The DCMA limits the copyright infringement liability by service providers and non-profit organizations such as educational institutions with users that violate the copyright laws. Also, “webcasters”, or persons that air copyrighted music via the internet, are subjected to paying licensing fees to recording industries for played music. This act disabled radio stations within the United States to air music on the internet simultaneous to the music played over the airwaves because apart from the licensing fees paid to the recording industry for radio-played music, they are required to also pay a licensing fee for internet music.

Ahead of certifying that copyrighted music is not infringed upon via the internet, the RIAA has begun to crackdown on individuals pirating music. The RIAA is a collection of seven music labels, which are: Sony Music Entertainment, Inc., BMG Music, Virgin Records America, Inc., Interscope Records, Atlantic Recording Corporation, Warner Brothers Records, Inc., and Arista Records, Inc.. These labels comprise 85% of sound recordings in America that are either produced or sold. The RIAA is funded by and represents only the music labels, the mega-corporations, and not the artists who created the copyrighted works.
In the media, American citizens continuously hear about the crackdown of cartels that are present in countries that smuggle their illegal drugs into this country creating a financial burden for the taxpayers in the form of drug treatments and criminal acts. Also heavily present in the media is the news of the crackdown of copyright violators by the RIAA. However, we do not hear from the government about the crackdown of the music cartel, the RIAA. A cartel is defined by the amalgamation of independent business organizations that regulate production, pricing, and marketing of goods by the member organizations, which are the seven music labels that comprise the RIAA. Buying music from labels associated with the cartel is further strengthening their grip on the market and making it harder for musicians belonging to independent labels to sell their work.

In a letter to Senator Norm Coleman from Cary Sherman, President of the RIAA, Sherman said that due to free downloading of music, the total number of sales was down in 2001 from 60 million in 2000 to 40 million; however, he did not say that the number of artist releases was down as well as the number of artists’ singles. There were numerous reasons why revenue of album sales was down in 2001 other than the lower number of distributed albums and singles. The primary reason was the slumping economy in 2001, the dot-com burst that left numerous of well-paid employees and minimum-wage-paid employees jobless. Increased prices for a product during a poor economy will not bolster sales but hinder it. Another reason of decreased sales by RIAA members could be the issue of record companies that settled a price-fixing suit in which the companies arbitrarily inflated prices and overcharged the consumer.

In September, 261 subpoenas were issued to various individuals that downloaded copyrighted music via peer-to-peer file-sharing software applications such as Kazaa, the most popular file-sharing program with over 100 million registered users. One of the individuals that received a subpoena was Lorraine Sullivan. According to the RIAA’s records, she downloaded various music files using Kazaa and would be held accountable for $750 to $150,000 per song in her shared folder, which consisted of one hundred eight songs along with several hundred others listed on the subpoena. Since Sullivan’s name was on the cable bill, she was held accountable for the entirety of the several hundred songs that were also downloaded by her roommates. Sullivan plead her case to an individual that was handling settlements from subpoenaed individuals on behalf of the clients and a $2,500 settlement was agreed upon. The majority of the files that Sullivan downloaded were ones that she already owned on a CD but lacked the technological know-how to upload them to her computer. This presents a major issue with the subpoenaing of records from internet service providers, not all individuals who are violating the copyright laws will be held accountable for their actions and others who are innocent are being punished with little chance of exoneration.

The RIAA is not an innocent party in this online downloading issue; they, themselves, are violators of copyright law. Companies within the RIAA use a re-engineered version of Kazaa, known as Kazaa Lite, to gain access to the file-sharing network to download songs from users on the network. The re-engineered version of Kazaa sends online messages to users informing them of the breach in copyright law after they allowed a copyrighted song to be downloaded or downloaded a song from the RIAA user. On the network, members of the RIAA track the IP address of a violator and proceed to retrieve information from their internet service provider in order to sue said user for copyright infringement. However, this method of finding violators is flawed and innocent people are accused of copyright infringement. In the case of Sarah Ward, a 65-year-old retired teacher, sculptor, and grandmother in Massachusetts, she was accused of downloading 2,000 songs using Kazaa that came with a price tag of $300,000,000. Fortunately for Ms. Ward, proving her innocence, after repeatedly stating she did not download the said 2,000 songs, was a technical matter. Ms. Ward owns a Macintosh computer, which Kazaa is not available for, being exclusive to Microsoft Windows based computers.

Despite the RIAA’s stance on music downloading, there are numerous artists and independent music labels that acknowledge the benefits of file-sharing programs. These artists and labels believe that shared music files will increase their fan base and revenue from sales of albums and concert tickets. Also, there is a movement for artists to let the consumers know that file sharing is allowed along with open source files by branding the content with a Creative Commons license. Creative Commons is an organization comprised of artists and lawyers specializing in cyberlaw and intellectual property law.

Sharing music among family, friends, and coworkers essentially is free promotion for an artist. If two coworkers share a similar taste in a genre and one of them possesses an album by an artist the other has not heard of, they would be inclined to share with their coworker a copy of it. If that coworker finds the music to their liking, they would add the artist to their music library and seek out other albums. Sharing music is also quite similar to an opening act at a concert. Often times a band tours with an opening act that is categorized under the same genre and under the same label to help promote the lesser-known artist. Concertgoers are introduced to the music by the artist and if found enjoyable will leave the concert with a new appreciation of that artist’s work and intention to purchase the albums.

A new revolution is upon the digital music listeners today; the entire structure of downloading music off the internet is vastly changing for the better. Currently, Apple’s iTunes website allows computer users to download a single song for 99 cents. Information regarding music use on the website states that the owner of purchased music is allowed to make infinite copies of the songs on CDs, on iPods (Apple’s digital music player), and play songs on up to three computers.

The tactics used by the Recording Industry Association of America in regards to preventing online downloading of its members’ artists’ works are appalling. It’s understandable that the private organization seeks proper compensation for copyright infringement, but seeking out settlements with shocking financial reparations to persons innocent of charges does not promote confidence in the system. Use of misinformation by statistics and surveys to denote loss of revenue only intensifies resentment among the consumers. It becomes apparent that the RIAA is not interested in the artists’ work, or the consumer’s best interest, but only in the financial rewards that mega-corporations receive.

05:40 PM

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