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Hilary Rosen Will Step Down As RIAA Head
Phoenix666 writes "NYT Business reports Hilary Rosen is leaving. Question is, what head will spring from the Hydra next? Could this signal a shift in the RIAA's tactics? The article reports 'Rosen's departure comes as the organization sought to soften its image among Internet consumers, many of whom viewed the RIAA -- and Rosen personally -- with antipathy over incessant pressure for crackdowns on sharing digital music over the Internet.'" A press release on the RIAA site says that Rosen will leave at the end of this year.
"Don't wish for a new enemy, you won't know what tricks are up its sleeves!"
She stepped down to spend time with her children. Yeah, right! She has harmed her industry beyond repair by trying to kill the free promotion of file trading, and calling paying customers thieves, all to slay a paper tiger called "piracy." They suggested that she should leave quietly. Expect more executives to be be forced out as more and more people get tired of their crap, and stop buying CDs.
How ya like dat?
(big explosion of smoke and fire, munchkin geeks scatter at the sight of Valenti in witches' drag)
I thought you said the wicked witch was dead!
Ah, but we killed the wicked witch of the east; this is her sister, the wicked witch of the west. She's much worse.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
I seriously think that is a great suggestion, and
I bet that she would agree to it. If she cares
what the
such a move could do nothing but improve her image.
What could she possibly have to lose by agreeing
to such an interview?
Ya, who other than a pirate would be upset by this:Wait, I'm a programmer working for a small company. I make my living off of the compromise of copyright. It pisses the hell out of me!
Copyright infringement is not the same thing as killing people at sea and taking everything they have. Copyright infringement is also not the same thing as breaking into someone's house and stealing what they own. It's not even the same as depriving someone else of their property. Copyright is more akin to jaywalking, trespassing or jumping a subway toll gate. Copyright is valid exactly as long as society decides to make it valid.
Groups like the RIAA would be wise to remember this fact if they value their "intellectual property".
That's slashdot priorities for ya.
The cake is a pie
I should probably post this AC but what the hell.
I'm no fan of Hillary Rosen's tactics as head of the RIAA. But it should be pointed out that she's the head of a lobbying/representative group. She does the bidding of the CEOs whose companies pony up fat wads of cash for the services of the organization that she heads. In a recent Wired article (which will be online tomorrow according to the website) she said that her job is basically to do all the unpopular shit that the record execs want her to do, while shielding them from the criticism. In other words, she's a paper tiger. Her successor will be one as well. She and the RIAA are doing the bidding of the likes of Sony, Vivendi Universal, AOL-TW and all the others. I don't see anyone giving Sean (Pissy) Coombs a hard time about the RIAA's tactics but he's as culpable (as the head of a label that is an RIAA member) as Hillary Rosen is.
If you don't like the shit the RIAA is pulling (and you shouldn't), stop buying music from companies that support the RIAA. Of course, after seeing the list here you'll have quite a hard time finding any music to buy.
BFL
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
As you say, we have 11 months to go. It's unusual to keep a lame duck CEO kicking around for that length of time. Then again, maybe they have an especially vile agenda and want her to act as the lightning rod for a while longer.
The search for a replacement ought to be interesting. RIAA leader is one of the toughest jobs in the world today; right up there with Saddam's travel agent.
You're forgetting about ticket sales. For the cost of making "Signs", the studio got something they could show in the movie theatre, and something they could slap on DVD. By the time you go out to buy it, they've most likely already made back their initial investment (and then some).
With an album, on the other hand, people wouldn't pay to go to a concert hall nad have the studio recordings played for them. Instead, they (quite reasonably) demand a separate, live performance from the artists who made the album. That places constraints on both how many performances can be done (no musician can match the 3264 different venues all showing Signs on opening weekend) and it places constraints on how much money the investor can recoup (as concert sales are generally regarded as the area where the artist, a key part of every single live performance, can attempt to make back some of the money that crappy recording contracts cheat them out of).
Overall, it boils down to two different economic models. You could've just as easily compared an album to a computer game with a modest budget, and you would've come out favoring the album. Sure, at the base level, it's all intellectual property, but the details are a key part of the pricing. (And I haven't even really touched on supply and demand issues, which further differentiate the products.)