The Record Industry Association of
America, RIAA,
is a nonprofit organization representing the companies in
the record business. They believe MP3s are stealing
artists' expressions without their permission.
Citing copyright infringement, the
RIAA argues it is unfair to recording artists for people
to download music for free, and stated on its Web site
that "musicians and labels should be allowed to control
the products resulting from their collective creativity
and hard work."
In October 1998, The RIAA fought and
lost a battle with Diamond Rio, the creators of a new
portable MP3 player after attempting to block the sale
and distribution of the MP3 player. The RIAA claimed that
Diamond had not made arrangements to pay royalty fees to
cover money the industry lost on unauthorized copies, and
that the product hadn't been modified to block second
generation copies of its stored sound files.
For its part, Diamond defended the Rio
MP3 player as a product simply for playback and storage
purposes and not a recording device as the RIAA
asserted.
