ABSTRACT
The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) eventually succeeded in getting warning labels put on potentially offensive music, although the group failed in some of its more ambitious goals. The PMRC's first step was to write a letter to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), signed by the wives of twenty influential Washington politicians, urging that the RIAA develop a voluntary rating system similar to that used for movies. PMRC press releases in 1986 and 1988-1990 reporting that record companies were adequately applying labels were largely ignored, although the PMRC succeeded in convincing the RIAA to develop more detailed criteria about when to use the Parental Advisory label. The RIAA believed that the industry was losing millions of dollars a year in pirated products because of home recording, and it was particularly interested in the views of PMRC members, several of whom had husbands on committees hearing the proposed legislation.
