Hating Hilary. We've certainly heard a bit from Hilary Rosen, CEO of the RIAA. Love her, hate her or hate her more, this particular interview reveals (to me at least) a very different Hilary, a woman who is perhaps not the beast that her bosses expect her to be and the immovable technophobic distribution system and business model she represents forces her to be.

In fact, Rosen tried to steer the labels toward the online future long before they saw it coming. In the mid-'90s, Rosen brought [Esther] Dyson to a conference of music executives to brief them on how technology would transform their business. Dyson described for them the inevitability of digital delivery, an eventuality Rosen says she had begun to understand but wanted her bosses to hear from an outsider. But as Dyson spoke, the label executives became defensive, then furious. By all accounts, the meeting devolved into a shouting match.

the picture of her with an iPod says it all

"I finally convince the idiot record companies that they have to offer a product to compete with pirates, and now the publishers won't make a deal," she said, throwing up her hands. priceless.
posted on Jan 23, 2003 - View this thread

Bye Bye Ms. Rosen. Hilary Rosen announces a decision to depart the RIAA. Is it REALLY about her children or does the RIAA want to soften it's image. Rosen's tendency to polarize the situation with hard-hitting threats like this may have finally broken the camels back. As a friend said - "Things for RIAAare just going to get worse as music sales decrease, piracy increases, and responses to it alienate listeners of all stripes, who just want to hear some tunes, man."
posted on Jan 22, 2003 - View this thread

This evening 20/20 broadcast a report on the new payola.Names are named. This explains a lot about the current state of music radio. Ironically, one of those complaining the loudest was good ol' Hilary Rosen of the RIAA who are doing their damnedest to destroy internet radio, along with college and public radio, the only alternative to the institutional corruption she decries. But in this case, she's on the side of the angels, it would seem. This report is timely though and does illustrate what's wrong with concentrating media power in too few hands.
posted on May 24, 2002 - View this thread

The War Against MP3? Hilary Rosen, everyone's favourite defender of record company hegemony, outlines her new strategy ("Help me help you.") in an email leaked to FuckedCompany. Interestingly, it's aimed at beating the dastardly hackers at their own game, with tactics such as "Spoofing and/or interdiction methods for existing peer to peers". Signs of desparation on the part of the RIAA, or should people be making the most of the second-generation Napster clones while they have a chance?
posted on Oct 3, 2001 - View this thread