The Recording Industry Association Of America has announced a new agreement with the US government agency that seeks to enforce intellectual property rights - known as the IPR Center - which will see the two organisations “expand and formalise their partnership on digital anti-piracy efforts”.
Through the expanded partnership, they add, the RIAA and IPR Center will “implement an aggressive multi-layered strategy to strengthen the digital ecosystem, conduct joint training events, educate consumers on the dangers of illegal streaming, enforce the nation’s intellectual property rights laws, and dismantle large-scale online criminal enterprises. The agreement will also work to develop comprehensive lead referral packages on the most egregious violators for criminal investigation”.
As for why such alliances are needed, the RIAA says that “digital music piracy remains a major threat to artists, songwriters, and rights-holders - taking many forms from the theft and distribution of works prior to commercial release leaks to stream-ripping. It has caused a massive amount of harm to the industry and artists, reducing recorded music revenues in the United States by 50% during the peak periods of peer-to-peer network piracy, losses from which the industry has yet to fully recover”.
Confirming the new partnership, the acting director of the IPR Center, Ricardo Mayoral, states: “Investigations into illicit streaming services are extremely complex; these services are typically operated from abroad through multi-faceted schemes that touch numerous countries. Because of this complexity, our partnership with RIAA brings us one step closer toward dismantling criminal enterprises that think they are above the law, attempting to use the internet to hide illicit activity”.
Meanwhile, the RIAA’s Chief Content Protection Officer Brad Buckles adds: “Digital piracy is too big a problem for any one artist, industry or agency to handle on their own. The expanded partnership we have signed today helps solve that problem - strengthening cooperation and coordination between law enforcement and the private sector to protect digital music and the broader creative economy”.
“As global piracy operations evolve their tactics and innovate new ways to steal and profit from creative works”, he goes on, “this [partnership] will empower creators and the federal government to work together on the cutting edge of this fast-moving fight”.
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