Recording Industry Association of America

professional organization of American record producers, RIAA

"RIAA" redirects here. You may also be looking for RIAA equalization. The Recording Industry Association of America (or 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. In some of those cases it has been called by the defendants "a cartel acting collusively in violation of the antitrust laws and of public policy, by tying their copyrights to each other, collusively litigating and settling all cases together, and by entering into an unlawful agreement among themselves to prosecute and to dispose of all cases in accordance with a uniform agreement, and through common lawyers, thus overreaching the bounds and scope of whatever copyrights they might have". See, e.g. UMG v. Lindor, where the RIAA has moved to "strike" those accusations. The motion to strike the charges is pending, and is scheduled to be taken under consideration by the Court on October 2, 2007.
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