Ethical Issues in Music Technology Today

The RIAA, or The Recording Industry of America, is a United States trade group that deals with record labels and the administration and distribution of licenses and royalties of signed artists.  Members of the RIAA include the major labels earlier discussed, EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner.  Due to the growing popularity of piracy, the RIAA has taken a strict stance on copyright infringement.

Countless efforts have been made by the RIAA to limit the amount of piracy activity over illegal downloading programs.  They have used electronic web crawlers to track pirates and keep an eye out for individuals who are trading the copyrighted music.  The RIAA has attempted to create new security features on mp3s and other audio formats in order to put a brake on piracy.  In October of 2002, the RIAA sent 2,300 letters to college presidents regarding the issue of music piracy.  In the letter RIAA and its partners encouraged college across the nation treat piracy like they would if a student were to steal a book out of the university bookstore.  The letter stated, “The students and other users of your school’s network who upload and download infringing copyrighted works without permission of the owners are violating Federal copy right law,” adding, “Stealing is stealing is stealing, whether it’s done with sleight of hand by sticking something in a pocket.

An Oklahoma State University Freshman named Scott Wickberg has his own story.  Wickberg is known as one of the first people that the RIAA went after in their efforts to put an end to copyright infringement. Wickberg was caught by the RIAA during a routine patrolling of the internet.  After seeing that Wickberg had been downloading and sharing over 10,000 mp3 files, the RIAA notified the Oklahoma State University police and ordered them to monitor Wickberg’s internet activity consequently leading to the confiscation of his computer. 

At the time of the incident Scott Wickberg kept optimistic and said of his situation, “I thought I was playing by the rules. I’m not in this to make money or do any damage to anybody. I believe that if you really like an artist, you should support the artist, because those guys are trying to live off this. I was just doing this because I liked the music. Everybody else likes music, too, and everybody else is out there downloading.” He added laughing, “I guess I like music more.” 

Scott Wickberg wasn’t laughing long; as a result of his piracy the local DA arrested Wickberg on a misdemeanor charge of “unlawful advertisement or offer to distribute sound recordings.”  Wickberg was punished with two years unsupervised and deferred probation and a $5,000 fine. In addition the DA ordered Wickberg to hand in to them his computer, hard drive, monitor, and any blank compact discs that Wickberg made with any of the copyrighted material.

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