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Piracy: Online and on the Street

It’s commonly known as piracy, but it’s a too benign term that doesn’t even begin to adequately describe the toll that music theft takes on the many artists, songwriters, musicians, record label employees and others whose hard work and great talent make music possible.

Music theft can take various forms: individuals who illegally upload or download music online, online companies who build businesses based on theft and encourage users to break the law, or criminals manufacturing mass numbers of counterfeit CDs for sale on street corners, in flea markets or at retail stores. Across the board, this theft has hurt the music community, with thousands of layoffs, songwriters out of work and new artists having a harder time getting signed and breaking into the business.

One credible analysis by the Institute for Policy Innovation concludes that global music piracy causes $12.5 billion of economic losses every year, 71,060 U.S. jobs lost, a loss of $2.7 billion in workers' earnings, and a loss of $422 million in tax revenues, $291 million in personal income tax and $131 million in lost corporate income and production taxes.  For copies of the report, please visit www.ipi.org.

In response, the music industry has employed a multi-faceted approach to combat this piracy, combining education, innovation, and enforcement:

• With investigators deployed in cities across the country, the RIAA is working closely with law enforcement to pull pirate products off the street and to demonstrate that the consequences for this illegal activity are real.
• We are continuing our efforts to educate fans about the value of music and the right ways to acquire it and, when necessary, to enforce our rights through the legal system.
• Record companies have licensed hundreds of digital partners that offer a range of legal models to fans: download and subscription services, cable and satellite radio services, Internet radio webcasting, legitimate peer-to-peer services, video-on-demand, podcasts, CD kiosks and digital jukeboxes, mobile products such as ringbacks, ringtunes, wallpapers, audio and video downloads and more.

Our goal with all these anti-piracy efforts is to protect the ability of the recording industry to invest in new bands and new music and, in the digital space, to give legal online services a chance to flourish.