Recording Industry Association of America

¶ … Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has faced numerous social and economical problems in their industry (recording). Music in its context has attracted a very high demand in America as well the entire globe; this demand has generated very peculiar methods of accessing music at the expense of important people who have struggled to ensure the success of the entire recording industry. This in its self has degraded the fight for economic stability, music growth and the industry's ability to run its functions efficiently.

RIAA has however been faced with many challenges from the environmental, social and economic arenas. All those problems can however be attributed to the leadership approach in regards to the models, concepts and capabilities.

Abstract

The recording industry is important to every nation since it is a prime source of both national pride and income. It is for this reason that different nations have come up with organizations which mandated to spearhead the process of efficiently managing the recording industry. One of such agencies that we formed for this reasons is the Recording Industry Association of America whose mandate is to ensure that proper recording standards are adhered to while at the same time protect the intellectual property and First Amendment Rights of artists and music labels; they also monitor and reveal federal and state laws, policies and regulations. Every organization is however faced with several challenges. RIAA is no exception. This paper is going to analyze the leadership approach of RIAA's leadership approach in light of the models, concepts and capabilities. The paper will then offer viable recommendations for enhancing the approach including strategy specific suggestions.

Introduction

The Recording Industry Association of America has always been the main force in fighting music related crimes in United States of America and the world. The organization deals with cases of rampant duplication of music that is basically piracy, counterfeiting and also the malicious bootleg. The extent to which music is duplicated shall be established with a view of giving recommendations that the law enforcement agencies may adopt for the mutual good of the organization, economy and the entire community.

Music law offenders have always been sued and charged in the courts of law as a way of controlling the scourge. It has been an endless struggle by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA); thus effective establishment of both managerial and organizational leadership in RIAA has over the years acted with wise decision making for sustainability of their company.

The Recording Industry Association of America is an organization that represents the entire industry of recording and distribution of music in the United States of America. It was formed in 1952 with a sole goal of administering the RIAA equalization curve (a specification for the correct playback of gramophone records). The objective of the equalization was to permit greater playback times, improve the quality of sound, and reduce vinyl damages that would come up from recording analog records without such equalization. The RIAA ha since then continued with its active participation in administration and creation of technical standards in music recording and production.

Every organizations leadership involvement plays a very vital role in increasing the effectiveness of its team/workforce. Leadership is therefore given a holistic approach with an objective of creating value within the company. Each and every organization is complex and dynamic, and must positively act as a whole to the ever emerging challenges faced every time.

Record Industry Association of America is an organization like any other and also bound by challenges that it must fight in order to run its operations in a smooth manner. The biggest challenge is music duplication, which is a serious offence subject to a hearing at a court of law. It has been indeed revealed from reliable sources (RIAA) that piracy is still a big issue to eradicate. In support to this mission, the Recording Association of America is tirelessly working to protect the intellectual property and First amendment rights of artists and music labels; they also monitor and reveal federal and state laws, policies and regulations.

Background

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) which is trade organization mandated to provide support and promote the creative aspect and the financial vitality of several music companies is faced with a combination challenges from the environmental, social and economic arenas. It is worth noting that the members of RIAA are praised as the team that makes up the most vibrant record industry in the whole world (RIAA, 2010).

For every organization to succeed in achieving its aims and objectives, it must have a good leadership structure. The main aim of the leadership structure is to ensure that the organizations aims and objectives are achieved through an efficiently coordinated association. There should be leadership goodwill so as to enable the organizations mantra to be driven to the maximum. This is why the best leadership approach should be installed in every organization so as to help in taking care of all sorts of challenges that are bound to face the organization.

The relationship that exists between the leadership styles and approaches. The current leadership approach at RIAA is one that can be referred to as a distinctive approach. In this approach, several scholars such as Vroom and Yetton (1973) and then Vroom and Jago (1989) isolated the different approaches ad methods of leadership that are related to a leader's basis of making decision. They concentrated however on the preferential aspect of a leader's decision making. It is quite clear that the current RIAA leadership which comprises of a Chairman, the CEO, a president of Board of Directors and 27 members of the board who are sourced from different companies is a distinctive approach and is marred with poor leadership styles. This sort of a scenario gives rise to a very ineffective service delivery since the overall picture in the organization is that is deficient of motivation, commitment together with lack of collective responsibility. The myriads of lawsuits that have rocked RIAA in the past can partly be attributed to the leadership approach that is in place.

The Recording Industry Association of America undergoes serious economic problems as a result of losses from street piracy, online piracy and illegal manufacture and sale of counterfeit compact disc. A thorough analysis carried out by the Institute of Policy Innovation suggests that global music piracy is responsible for $12.5 billion of economic losses annually. This is a terrifying especially to those in the music industry who have worked hard to ensure the sustainability of the music world. Other serious economic loser includes government with approximately $422 million yearly, 71,060 U.S. job cuts; personal income tax of about $291 million $131 million in lost production taxes and corporate income. The past few years have been the most difficult years ever experienced by the recording industry, there have been drastic decrease in sales with all fingers pointing at piracy as the cause. There has been decrease in overall shipment due to global online piracy and CD-burning. Reliable survey has also indicated that more consumers opt to download or copy their music for free.

Solutions

The solutions to the problem rely mostly in the change of leadership approach and styles. The new approach should be representative of the needs of all the members of RIAA and should be able to motive them so that they can have a general feeling of personal fulfillment.

One of the major solutions RIAA should consider to seriously adopt by action is to copy- protect everything and make free music downloads harder to access. Copy protection of CDs helps in the prevention of the materials from abuse, misuse and/or piracy. Leaders should actively manage copyright issues, along with other intellectual property rights of the artists, for this will greatly help in reducing piracy and building the music industry to higher grounds. An artist will therefore enjoy: the reproduction right (printing, the "synchronization right" and the "mechanical right" and); the publication right (right to duplicate copies of available work to the public for the first time); the right to reproduce, publicly perform, broadcast any adaptation and publish; public performance right; and lastly the adaptation right (that includes the right to make transcriptions arrangements as well as the right to make translations.

Recommendations

For the various environmental, social and economic that face RIAA, it is obvious that the best solution can only be generated or rather achieved through the installation of proper management. The best approach would be the installation or rather the redrafting of the current leadership approach to be a situational one. This can be achieved through the efforts of several individuals who are involved in a common situation. Naturally, people fall into two categories. Either they are followers or they are leaders. A degree of variance between the two extremes exists however and can be a function of a particular setting or situation (Hoy & Miskel, 1987).