Talk:Recording Industry Association of America

Criticism

The whole criticism section has been (You know, the part where they sue kids, dead people and old ladies?) removed. Huh, wonder who would of had the motive to do that. Who, oh possibly who. Wikipedia is not CENSORED. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.156.4.240 (talk) 05:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

it's been over 4 months? (20th Oct 08)

I agree with you on this one. It is a very biased article in favour of the RIAA. Bonzostar (talk) 16:55, 4 November 2008 (UTC)

It's still gone. Seems very peculiar that an article on such a controversial subject is so in favor of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.211.214.149 (talk) 22:48, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the article has three sections on the RIAA suing various defendants. Its just not piled together in a "Criticism" section. Idag (talk) 22:51, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I feel that the article should be flagged for bias. It contains no criticism section, only has one section where it mentions the lawsuits that the RIAA is mostly known for. In addition to this I feel that the selection of defendants section should be expanded so that it mentions the problems with their systems (such as suing university printers http://torrentfreak.com/bitaudit-the-tool-you-dont-want-anti-pirates-to-have-100628/ ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.195.9.50 (talk) 03:24, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Fraud case brought against RIAA

Shahanda Moelle Moursy of North Carolina is suing four record companies, the RIAA, and two of the RIAA's investigative firms. Among the complaints are fraud and abuse of the court system for a public intimidation campaign.

I'm not sure if this is notable enough for the article yet, but if it gets to trial it probably will be, perhaps even meriting its own separate article. For anyone who wants to keep up with it, here are some links:

• http://www.p2pnet.net/story/18654.
• http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/01/174249
• http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-sued-fo...l-sham-090301/
• http://digg.com/music/RIAA_Sued_for_...and_Legal_Sham
• http://recordingindustryvspeople.blo...99874238501080 Equazcion •✗/C • 22:27, 1 Mar 2009 (UTC)

If she wins, then we could include it. Idag (talk) 22:52, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Trials aren't noteworthy enough for Wikipedia? --77.109.213.122 (talk) 10:15, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

neutrality

A section specifically dedicated to the most frequently cited criticisms would be the minimum needed to bring this into a half-neutral direction. It should definitely include the word "criticism" in the section header. Currently, the word "criticism" does not even once occur anywhere in the article. 78.34.152.54 (talk) 00:41, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

If you have reliably cited criticism then add it. Also note that separate criticism sections are discouraged. Better to balance the whole article by interweaving criticism in with the rest of the article. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 20:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

You're not neutral in the matter though. And I'm not an editor. 78.34.180.107 (talk) 20:23, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 20:59, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Your neutrality tag is unjustified. It's normally good practice before tagging articles to actually read the article, rather than just word searching it. You'll see there is criticism in the article.

• The RIAA's policy and method of suing individuals for copyright infringement is criticized.
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Civil Liberties Union and Public Citizen oppose the ability of the RIAA and other companies to "strip Internet users of anonymity without allowing them to challenge the order in court
• The RIAA's criticized methods of identifying individual users has led to..
• The "Work Made for Hire" controversy
• MC Lars's single "Download This Song" criticized the RIAA ..

--Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 21:40, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this article is actually pretty heavy on criticism. It's incorporated into each relevant section of the article. This is preferred to having "POV" sections. Cool Hand Luke 23:52, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

This article is very, vey bad. It needs to be completely rewritten, because it's only bashing on RIAA, not giving information about it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lars Jan Zeeuw (talk • contribs) 19:14, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not. It's way too kind on those cheaters. It fails completely to cite several instances where RIAA has kept money intended for artists as well as lacks even a mention of the fact that RIAA has been sued by artists due to their scamming. --77.109.213.122 (talk) 10:15, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Collection of royalties?

From the article: "The RIAA also participates in the collection, administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties."

How so? According to the archives, isn't that what SoundExchange does? And if the RIAA collects royalties, shouldn't it then be categorised with Category:Copyright collection societies? -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 23:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Efforts Against Filesharing

"The RIAA opposes unauthorized sharing of its music by using terrorism tactics against single moms." This seems... over the top. Chaotic42 (talk) 23:37, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Neutrality and criticism?

From what I saw on the article today, quite a lot of criticism and controversies have been removed... for instance

As of late 2008 they have announced they will stop their lawsuits and instead are attempting to work with ISPs who will use a three strike warning system for file sharing, and upon the third strike will cut off internet service all together.^{[citation needed]} However as of 2009 no major ISPs have announced, and Verizon has publicly denied any involvement with this plan.

Whatever happened to the part where RIAA has been said that their lawsuits became a PR disaster.[1]

And that's not the end of it, RIAA, over it's short history, had even acknowledged that they had sued over 18,000 individuals, with other estimates of up to 35,000 lawsuits filed by the RIAA; these are figures significant enough for the article.[2]

Some studies conducted since the RIAA began its campaign against peer-to-peer file-sharing have concluded that losses incurred per download range from negligible to very small.

I can hardly see how the initial number of $4.5 million[3] or even the number after the trial, $675,000 is small, or even affordable for a student. Or how $1.92 million can be small for a mother of four.

And 750 per song in the "early settlement program" is hardly "negligible" either. This article needs extensive editing for POV, and I will put up a POV tag shortly--K_H^{Wiknerd(talk)} 14:34, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

---

This paragraph has been deleted, without much reason nor discussion? I hope you don't mind if I asked why?

The RIAA's policy and method of suing individuals for copyright infringement is criticized. Brad Templeton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has called the RIAA's lawsuits "spamigation" and implied they are done merely to intimidate people.

And the whole "cultural references" section has been deleted without reason nor discussion?

It seems there are some biased editors/RIAA employees here.

Yeah, propaganda is what they do. --77.109.213.122 (talk) 10:15, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Cultural references

• "Weird Al" Yankovic's single "Don't Download This Song" satirizes the RIAA's lawsuits against copyright infringers.
• The March 4, 2007 FoxTrot strip also satirized the RIAA's lawsuits, where Jason tried to teach his iguana Quincy to download music, because "it's one thing for them to go after single moms, widows, grandmothers, dead people and children... but sue an iguana?! That'd be insane!"

• The Machinae Supremacy song "Legion of Stoopid" refers to the company as the "Recording Industry Assholes of America."
• MC Lars's single "Download This Song" criticized the RIAA and the music industry in general, mentioning the RIAA's lawsuits against "little kids downloading hit songs."
• Billy Joel said in an interview that his first album Cold Spring Harbor wasn't worth the money to buy, and urges people to steal it if they can manage it.
• After being asked to compose a Christmas Song safe for download Jonathan Coulton released 'Podsafe Christmas Song' which contained the lyrics "Don't think us rude, we don't want to get sued/by the thugs at the RIAA."
• After the release of the album Year Zero, Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails told fans in Australia during tour to "STEAL IT. Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more and give it to all your friends and keep on stealin’. Because one way or another, these motherfuckers will get it through their head that they’re ripping people off and that’s not right." Reznor has openly opposed the RIAA, and later left Interscope, his record company at the time.

I will be edit those back in if there unless you disagree... with reason to do so, of course.--K_H^{Wiknerd(talk)} 14:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

To address your concerns point by point;

1. "Whatever happened to the part where RIAA has been said that their lawsuits became a PR disaster." - Your cite doesn't back this statement up. And it's from a blog anyway. Blogs are not acceptable cites.
2. "And that's not the end of it, RIAA, over it's short history, had even acknowledged that they had sued over 18,000 individuals" This is not a criticism or controversy. It's a fact. If you want to cite it as such do so.
3. "I can hardly see how the initial number of $4.5 million or even the number after the trial, $675,000 is small .... And 750 per song in the "early settlement program" is hardly "negligible" either." These are your opinions. Are you suggesting your opinion should act as balance to these cited studies?
4. "It seems there are some biased editors/RIAA employees here." Please do not cast accusations.
5. "This paragraph has been deleted, without much reason nor discussion? I hope you don't mind if I asked why?" - It's cited from a blog. Blogs are not acceptable cites.
6. "Cultural references". These sections tend to be random collections of trivia, so the least we can ask of them is they are accurate and cited.

• "Weird Al" Yankovic - No cite.
• FoxTrot - Cited cartoon makes no mention of RIAA. Relevance is down to an editor's interpretation.
• Billy Joel - No cite and no suggestion of any mention of RIAA.
• Jonathan Coulton - No cite.
• Trent Reznor - Cite refers to Universal Music Australia and The Australian Recording Industry Association. Neither of these are the RIAA.

Having explained the above questions of neutrality, can I ask you which parts of the article you believe "are written like an advertisement"? Otherwise could you please remove this tag.

Which parts require "clean up"? Otherwise could you please remove this tag.

--Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 22:52, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

You know, I've been watching this article for a while now and besides reverting obvious vandalism I believe I have not contributed any content to the article nor deleted any content. I watch this article because I know it's a magnet for trouble. Many people have strong opinions for or against the RIAA and they like to make them known. Anyways, I also noticed that little by little some content has been taken out but I haven't reverted the deletions because when I compare the current version of the article with older versions, the newer version seems to be more neutral. The current version provides the basic background information that is be expected of any Wikipedia article and that includes information on the controversial activity that the RIAA has engaged in. For the most part the way it is now, the article states the information and allows for the reader to make their own opinions on the organization, which is the way it should be. We as Wikipedia editors should not try to imply to readers that any entity or thing is good or bad regardless of how right or common our beliefs are.

The "Cultural references" section you [Wiknerd] mention that was removed was actually more like "a list of people who hate the RIAA" and only two of the cultural references were cited. The editor who removed that section clearly stated in their edit summary that this section was "unbalanced" (not adhering to a neutral point of view) and lacking sources. On the other hand, there is some information of enough importance that is missing from the article and some of the sections of the article are ripe for a re-write. If you intend to contribute to the article I would like you to keep in mind that the RIAA is a controversial organization and that it's hard to keep any article about such things neutral. Stick to the facts, cite plenty of reliable third party sources, and avoid including statements which tend to not be relevant like, "[famous person's name here] disagrees with RIAA", unless you are also going to include a differing statement like, "[other relevant person's name here] agrees with RIAA". By the way, thanks for discussing before editing. --Nova Weaver (talk) 00:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Regardless, the article has an abundance of the material about the functioning and the "usefulness" (i.e. "Goals of the RIAA"?) of the RIAA, but not the criticism nor damage they cause. I think that may be improved. I have removed the tags, but in my opinion that article is still quite far from presenting all sides. --K_H^{Wiknerd(talk)} 22:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Just a small suggestion. Why not put something like "discuss on the talk page before editing"? That might allow more time for unsubstantiated claims or biased sources to be filtered out?--K_H^{Wiknerd(talk)} 22:55, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Rephrasing needed for this sentence?

While looking for unsourced statements I came across this:

The RIAA's criticized methods of identifying individual users has led to the issuing of subpoenas to a dead grandmother, an elderly computer novice, and even those without any computer at all.

Which does not really make sense, particularly the part in bold. Maybe can be more properly phrased as:

The criticized methods of the RIAA used to identify individual users has led to the issuing of subpoenas to a dead grandmother, an elderly computer novice, and even those without any computer at all.

(Though I still feel slightly giddy about the wording of the first few words, it's certainly an improvement)

I hope I'm not getting the wrong meaning of this sentence/mistranslated the gist?--K_H^{Wiknerd(talk)} 23:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)