RIAA Knows Your Music

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is one of the major trade organizations in the music industry.  This association keeps sales records of a majority of music released from major record labels.  They also control legalities and policies of artists and record labels.  The RIAA plays a major part of the four major music companies of the world such as EMI, Sony Music, Warner Music, and Universal Music.  This organization is important to the music industry or my industry because piracy is rampant today and it is important to receive earnings from music record sales.

The RIAA consists of a Gold & Platinum Program, which recognizes artists and songs that have sold millions.  I read on their news page that digital singles have doubled compared to last year.  The biggest single sellers were Adele, Lady Gaga, and Lil Wayne.  I see this being an improvement in the music industry because consumers are still buying music instead of downloading it illegally.

I also read on the RIAA news page that they recently announced, with the International Intellectual Property Alliance, that China, Russia, and Canada are the worst offenders in copyright infringement.  It bothers me that they put this on their page because the U.S. is just as bad with copyright infringement.  Although some major share filing companies, for instance Megaupload, have been shut down, there are still plenty of file sharing applications for illegal music use.

In the future, I tend to fill out an application and join the Recording Industry Association of America. I have their RSS feed in my Google Reader because it is important to stay updated on record sales of today’s artists.  On Twitter, I am following the Senior Vice President of RIAA, Jonathan Lamy, Vice President, Cara Duckworth Weiblinger, and Director of Communications, Liz Kennedy.