Hilary Rosen In the Financial Times
Published August 14, 2002
It's lonely at the top:
- Hilary Rosen, chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, has the kind of public profile most trade association chiefs would kill for. She is always in the papers, she regularly appears in media industry rankings such as Entertainment Weekly's "Annual Power List of the 101 Most Influential People in Entertainment", and during the Clinton years the 43-year-old executive was regularly referred to in Washington DC circles as "the other Hillary".
But the RIAA's very public battles with legislators, regulators, illicit music trading internet services like Napster and disaffected musicians has also made Ms Rosen something of a hate figure. Critics who argue that the RIAA's members, responsible for 90 per cent of all sound recordings in the US, put profits before artistic freedom, ridicule her endlessly on the internet. One congressman even compared her to Saddam Hussein last year.
"I think the worst thing was being named villain of the year by Internet Life magazine," says Ms Rosen, sitting in the RIAA's Washington offices, while Bruce Springsteen's new album plays in the background. "Before Napster we were pretty much a behind-the-scenes trade association working on the business interests of our members. What's changed is that we have become a symbol for the industry's efforts to deal with the threats it currently faces from high-tech pirates. But I don't mind the abuse - if they hate me for protecting artists, writers and the creative community's interests online, then fine, let them hate me for it."
UPDATE
An anonymous response to the Rosen story:
Question.. Since when is it just the "pirates" that are
doing these insults?
Stop the childish damn name calling for the love of god..
all of the consumers are not "pirates" and everytime you
brand them as such you simply push people to avoid the
pathetically weak options forced down consumers throughts
by the industry.
If you try and repeatedly physically force feed a baby the
food you think he or she should like that baby is gonna
choke and scream, it's quite simple. Do you think calling
the baby names is going to help matters?
Another illustration on how arrogant comments like this
simply further create a void between consumers & artists
and the RIAA.
- Hilary Rosen In the Financial Times
- Published: August 14, 2002
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- Writer: Eric Olsen
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- Eric Olsen's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
Sorry for the extra "L" in Hilary's name, I'm early in adding an extra L to her name which will stand for "like".
Emusic is a great example here, and where's G. Beato when we need him?
The tremendous plus that Emusic has is the ability to download mp3's and then transfer them freely. I think a big-5 service like Emusic would be worth at least $30 a month. And the more restrictive services like pressplay and Rhapsody would be out of business within the month.
Good takes, Aaron.
Thanks, Chuck.
I'm not familiar with G. Beato but I just read some of his work and I must say that I agree with much of what he says. However, I just want to pay a monthly fee for unlimited downloads in addition to having my past downloads saved on a server to download over and over again -- just like the two companies I mentioned allow. What I'm saying is that I have no use for cd's, sorry to say. I'm just getting into portables and most cd's in portables skip, good quality mp3's do not -- I don't really want a portable CD player even if it doesn't skip, how portable can it be with a huge CD in it? Yes, the art on cd's will be missed by people like me, but I'll support art in other ways.
Great minds like Eric Olsen and Glenn Reynolds will not abandon cd's so the cd-making industry will survive. Maybe if I had my own house I would still purchase cd's but in my non-soundproof residence I cannot play a stereo very loud or at all hours so I prefer to put a portable device on my belt and Koss headphones -- earclips -- in/on my ears and have easy access to my paid-4-music-library on the Net.
Why can't the RIAA implement services most would pay for and if they're worried about the upfront costs, they could go after those who steal music via newsgroups -- most swappers pay for a real news server -- and IRC? Might as well upset these music lovers as well so we can all receive even more feedback.
Question to be answered, if any: How's that proposal going in California -- I think -- will the RIAA have the right to hack my computer in Canada or only computers within the United States?
(Don't Blame Canada on this matter, we actually purchase some stuff, Cyberbomb China instead)
Comment: I know, it's time for me to run a Google search on that Hacking Hollywood/RIAA proposal :o)
Goodness, people. You're out there actually paying for mp3s? You're only going to encourage people like Hilary Rosen. Get on a service like Kazaa, and start ripping huge amounts of music, and don't lose any sleep over it. All this hemming and hawing... oh, but it's bad, oh I feel guilty for not paying rent for some ginormous fucking corner office for some fat fucking suit who does nothing creative at all for a living... christ almighty.
Rosen says that p2p will kill the record industry. Let's prove her right.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/61)
Until Hillary and her pals can offer an EMusic.com-like service for the Big 5 music content -- EMusic is $10/month, I'd pay $30-$50/month for the Big 5 -- I'll continue to download some popular songs via the free route. EMusic.com has some treats like CCR, Bush, The Hives, etc. but mostly unknown-to-me independent music. I still purchase the odd cd -- for my living room dvd/cd player -- but that's only because I don't yet have a burner, when I do, I won't pay for anything unless Hillary, etc. begin to listen, rather than punish their clients.
Hillary's protecting the artists, how, by making us despise the music industry?
What's wrong with allowing transfers to portable devices? Ten a month for how much?
I transfer ten a day with EMusic and Audible. The cost for these two services come out to just over $25/month USD for a whole lot of services. Check them out and learn how.
(I don't even put my CD's in the computer anymore out of fear the music industry will crash my computer)
Oh yes, I'd like to thank the RIAA for mentioning Napster two years ago when I first got online, I didn't know how great a service could be, maybe someday the RIAA could permit us to pay for a similar service? Nah, they prefer to just talk to the media, talk, talk, talk and introduce new music CEO's since they continue to fail. I'm giving the RIAA until the summer of 2003 to offer an EMusic/Audible or even a subscription-based Napster -- if we can't trade with other clients, you'd better have great servers -- kind of service, if not, I'll only know what's popular when other people tell me or I'm near their stereos.
EMusic.com & Audible.com good, RIAA bad, so far.
(Must be in .mp3 format for my portable device, please don't change to xyz format unless you offer a free portable device -- that will play Audible.com files as well -- with a one or two-year subscription kind of thing)
(Less media appearances, more adaption to the present times -- not the NYT. You can still bring some of us back but this list is diminishing)