The Record Industry'S Challenge

The Record Industry's Challenge

Through out the 21st century there has been many ups and downs in the music industry. One problem was whether or not to take a risk and go ahead with a new style of music or whether a particular person would be a good investment as an artist. Although that wasn't the only problems they faced another problem would have to be the age of internet file sharing (or other wise known as illegal downloading) and what it would do to their number of sales and how it would affect pop culture.

Let me start with a quick history of how the internet plays a major role in the presses of file sharing. In 1900 the World Wide Web was created (first ever web page) by Tim Berners-Lee. After launching the first ever web page, in 1998 mp3.com was founded by Michael Robertson. A year later on June 1999 Napster is released. Which created the birth of peer to peer file sharing and illegal music down loads. File sharing is the practice of making files available for other users to download over the Internet and smaller networks. Napster was released by Shawn Fanning (whose school nick name was Napster). He launched this company along with friend Sean Parker. Fanning wanted an easier way to search for music rather then go thru regular methods such as IRC (Internet Relay Chat) or Lycos ( an internet search engine and web portal centered around broadband entertainment content). Napster specialized exclusively in music in the form of MP3 files and presented a user-friendly interface. The result was a system whose popularity generated an enormous selection of music to download. With the files obtained through Napster, people frequently made their own compilation albums on recordable CDs, without paying any royalties to the copyright holder.

Due to the nature and illegal downloading , Napster later received a law suit from the RIAA ( The Recording Industry Association of America) On Decemeber 7th 1999 for providing a service which enabled users to download MP3 files off other users machines. Napster became bankrupt during the case; and has since been taken over by Roxio and provides a download service which is sanctioned by the RIAA.

The RIAA is a 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, who create and distribute about 90% of recorded music sold in the US. It is involved in a series of controversial copyright infringement legal actions on behalf of its members. The RIAA also participates in the collection, administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties. In the fall of 2003, the RIAA filed its first copyright-infringement lawsuits against file sharers. They've since sued more than 20,000 music fans. The RIAA maintains