Music piracy (copyright infringement) is defined, by Wikipedia, as the copying and/or selling of music without permission from the artist or recording company. Illegal downloading of music, music piracy, first began with Napster in 1999. Shawn Fanning (the founder of Napster), found out how to make downloading music easy without having to spend endless hours searching the internet. The laws regarding piracy stem from the copyright law established in 1790 via the US Constitution. Ideas, inventions, and artistic works are considered intellectual property and is covered under copyright law (Title 17, United States Code, Sections 501and 506). There are two sides of this decade long debate. One side feels that music piracy is a crime and should be punished by criminal law. The other side feels that music piracy should be made legal.
RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is a trade organization that represents the recording industry in the United States, and was formed in 1952 in Washington D.C. The purpose of the formation was to protect intellectual property rights and the First Amendment rights of artists, to perform research about the music industry, and to monitor and review relevant laws, regulations and policies. They are also the ones who are responsible for certifying Gold and Platinum albums and singles in the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recording_Industry_Association_of_America).
The founders of Napster saw that getting music off the internet was very difficult and very time consuming. People would spend hours searching thousands of websites before finding one, and even then the fear of getting an internet virus from the music files was at an all-time high. Shawn Fanning and two of his friends came together and discovered that there needs to be a peer-to-peer file sharing site. In 1998 they began to form the website Napster and it was completed in 1999 (Tom Lamont of The Observer).