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• Member since: December 20, 2008

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• The coverage of the RIAA story has been largely incomplete in the media, both the mass media and the technical media. The RIAA did not just pop into existence as a piracy-fighting organization. It started out as a good thing. The reporting has missed this essential piece of history:
  
  Back in the early days of phonograph records, audio enthusiasts had a large collection of turntable needles and a preamp with a large knob of equalization selections in order to play the records put out by the various labels -- records recorded to different technical standards. The RIAA started out as an industry standards-setting body, conceived to rein in the madness. Its goal was to have the industry agree on on a particular cutting geometry, and a single equalization curve. It succeeded. Without the RIAA, your cassette desk would be festooned with controls, likewise your CD player. How about having to have a unique codec for each version of MP3? The list goes on.
  
  The RIAA continued to be the meeting place to establish uniform method as new media cropped up. Like so many other standards bodies, the RIAA contributed to making your use of media players of all kinds simpler and easier.
  
  Where the RIAA went wrong was to also be an industry cartel dealing with the theft of intellectual property in the music business. A standards-setting body is not the right vehicle for such a cartel. The RIAA stepped out of the bounds of a standards-setting body, tarnishing the good name the RIAA had by the legal actions that the RIAA has embraced for the past five years.
  
  The RIAA needs to go back to its roots, being a standard-setting body. You and I, as well as the recording industry, still need that function. In reply to: "RIAA's Cary Sherman says lawsuits were the only option"

  December 20, 2008

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