Hilary Rosen In the Financial Times

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.