How would it feel to be sued ninety-eight billion dollars for sharing music? Recently a college student was sued for this exorbitant amount of money by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for downloading copyrighted songs without paying, through a commonly used free file-sharing program. This is one of several thousand Americans who has lost everything after being prosecuted by the RIAA. These extreme consequences make examples out of people, a tactic used by the RIAA to deter people from sharing music. The RIAA is against downloading music using free file-sharing programs for personal use. They are fighting to have greater power enforcing copyright laws upon those who download music. The RIAA considers it wrong and argues that it causes a loss of sales for the record company and loss of income to the artist. The RIAA uses music downloaders as scapegoats, wrongfully accusing them of harming the music industry.

When a person downloads a song, the sound file for that song is copied, not stolen. The RIAA claims that every single downloaded song is a lost sale. A study on the effects of file sharing on the recording industry contrasts this claim:

Many downloads represent transactions that would not have taken place at the asking price… The professors asked students to place a dollar value on CD's they bought and on CD's they effectively obtained free. The average valuation of downloaded hit CD's was only $8.81 -- far below the retail price. ''If they were downloading things they would not have purchased, that would tend not to reduce industry revenue and not to increase displacement,'' Professor Waldfogel said. (Gross 4)

Even though studies show otherwise, the RIAA is convinced that the decline of record sales in the last five years is due to the rise in the popularity of downloading music using file-sharing programs. The RIAA is merely using these people as scapegoats; the increase in downloading music is not the cause of the record industry slump.

The beginning of the decline in record sales in the United States also marked the beginning of a nation-wide recession. The recording industry was not the only sector to experience great losses starting in 2000. Economic recessions also cause more conservative consumer spending. Customers have a lower entertainment budget, and become more cautious about buying pricey CDs. Because of this restricted budget, people often sample music before buying, to ensure that their money will be spent wisely. This sampling of music through file sharing is similar to the radio, which does not harm record sales either. An article in Rolling Stone magazine comments on this idea of downloading music through file sharing for sampling purposes:

The fifty-one-page study — arriving six days after the record industry sued another 532 file sharers — is the most rigorous economic analysis available... The research also supports the idea that most people download music that they wouldn't buy anyway. And, says Oberholzer-Gee, "The Internet is more like radio than we thought. People listen to two or three songs, and if they like it, they go out and buy the CD” (Cave 17-18).

This study shows the small effect downloading music actually has on record sales. The economic slowdown of the United States is a rational cause for the decline in record sales, but the RIAA continues to use file sharing as a scapegoat.

The RIAA makes claims that the artists are not getting paid for their work, and this income is needed to make a living. These claims attempt to guilt people out of downloading music. Buying CDs is supposed to be a way of supporting the artists, but it can be deceiving. The “Research and Data: Music Cost” section of the RIAA web site states, “Then come marketing and promotion costs -- perhaps the most expensive part of the music business today.” The majority of funds spent on a CD go towards marketing and advertising, which only increase the capitalistic motive for creating music. Most of the money paid for a CD does not go directly to the artist. Even though this article was written by the RIAA as an attempt to discourage people from file sharing, it continues to work against the RIAA: “After production, recording, promotion and distribution costs, most CDs never sell enough to recover these costs, let alone make a profit. In the end, less than 10% are profitable, and in effect, it's these recordings that finance all the rest." This means that the money paid for more than ninety percent of CDs goes to support other, unrelated expenses. Thus, the twelve dollars spent to purchase a CD, or the ten thousand dollars spent to fill up a new Ipod using Itunes is not all going straight to the artist.

The RIAA is incorrect in its claim that file sharing has a large effect on the income of the artist because the most frequently downloaded artists have extravagant amounts of money. They lead excessive lifestyles because of their fame and fortune. The picture above is Michael Jackson's house and personal theme park, Neverland Ranch. He is one example of many artists who have unnecessary wealth created by their popularity. The songs by artists who are struggling to survive are nearly impossible to find and download through file sharing programs. This encourages people to go out and actually purchase these CDs, supporting the struggling artist. The RIAA blames people who download music for the decline of record sales, and consequently tries to make them feel responsible for stealing from the artists.

Despite the RIAA's attempts to discourage sharing, downloading music for free will always continue. The Supreme Court has thrown out the majority of lawsuits filed by the RIAA against individuals who share music. According to an article in Business Week Online, the Supreme Court “found that a federal law the RIAA used to force Internet service providers to cough up the identities of alleged file swappers is unconstitutional. The court ruled, essentially, that the provision violated due process” (Salkever). Enforcing these copyright laws are very difficult because doing so requires the prosecutor to violate the Fourth Amendment by searching private property without a warrant. The RIAA is fighting a losing battle against a multitude of music downloaders. Millions of people continue to share music every day, ignoring the efforts made by the RIAA to stop this behavior. The RIAA has chosen an inappropriate battle to fight, using file sharing as a scapegoat, unable to accept the actual reasons for their losses.