The Recording Industry Association of America, or RIAA, is a group of record companies representing the interests of music industry in the United States. It is the American equivalent of the British Phonographic Industry. While best known for their hardline stance on illegal file sharing of music, they are also responsible for a number of other activities.

Gold and platinum sales

One of the RIAA's main jobs is to produce official sales figures. They do this by comparing the number of recordings pressed, and minus the number which are returned as unsold from the shops. As the RIAA issues the official sales figures, they are also responsible fro issuing gold and platinum disks to top-selling artists.

For musicians which have sold a number of copies of their album or single which would make your local pub band cry, the musicians involved are given a gold disk of their album. It's not actually made of gold, although for well known albums the award itself can be worth many hundreds of pounds. As the gold album is only for half a million sales, the RIAA later introduced a platinum album (for 1 million sales), and, having run out of precious metals, a diamond album (for 10 million sales).

Relationship with artists

The fight against file sharing

The RIAA is actively opposed to file sharing. The impact of file sharing is disputed, but the RIAA claims that it costs the industry billions of pounds per year.

The RIAA have had some success in combating copyright infringement of music, notably in shutting down large sites like Napster.

The RIAA are also confronting the problem by starting legal action against suspected file sharers. Between 2003 and July 2006, the RIAA has sued over 20,000 people, from which they attempted to get $750 (£375) per song in damages. The very large number of lawsuits has been called
"spamigation" by the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Brad Templeton and "scare tactics" by CNet's Declan McCullagh.

The RIAA frequently bring lawsuits against many people at once based on IP addresses, known as "John Doe lawsuits", in order to get a name and address from the internet provider.

According to lawyer Ray Beckerman, the RIAA are bringing lawsuits in courts far from the homes of the defendant, so the defendant would find it less problematic to simply settle the case, or at least make it more difficult for someone to defend themself. In 2007, the RIAA launched a website which allows people to easily settle out of court.

Some, including Consumerist's Meghann Marco, CNet's Below Meigh and John Borland, Ars Technica's Jon Stokes and lawyer Ray Beckerman say the RIAA are participating in extortion. One defendant, Michele Scimeca, is countersuing the RIAA over this charge under the Organized Crime and Control Act.

Worse yet, the RIAA appear to have little evidence when they open a case, which has lead them to bring a lawsuit against at least one man who was not only innocent but did not even own a computer.

Many have levelled charges of immoral behaviour on the part of the RIAA and the lawyers involved. One common example of insensitivity is that, after learning that the defendant in one case had died, the RIAA simply offered the deceased man's family a period of sixty days to grieve the death before they continued their lawsuit against the man's estate.

Those sued have included a wide range, from children as young as 10 or 12, to elderly computer novices and a computer-less grandmother who had recently died. In 2006 the RIAA sued a woman with multiple sclerosis.

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