The
Recording Industry Association of America (or
RIAA) is the
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, rather than the actual artists responsible for the initial generation of the music.
The RIAA has been at the heart of the
file-sharing controversy, especially music files in the popular
MP3 format uploaded onto the
Internet using
peer-to-peer software. The RIAA has long contended that sharing of copyrighted music was a form of
piracy, applying the well-known computing term to music.
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 illegal file-sharing worldwide. The RIAA and its member groups argue that
Internet distribution of music, without the consent of the owner of the copyright in that music, not only detrimentally affected the profits of their members, but the careers of current and future artists as well, due to possible stagnation of the music industry from lack of innovation and production of a quality product.
Source: http://www.shortnews.com/shownews.cf...TOKEN=73682694
Source: 
Originally Posted by gamer4eva
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