Rosen Believes RIAA is Wrong about P2P Lawsuits

Newer Guy writes "Former RIAA head Hilary Rosen now believes that the RIAA is wrong by pursuing their lawsuits of individuals for using P2P programs. In a blog post, she writes that she believes the lawsuits have 'outlived their usefulness' and states that the content providers really need to come up with their own download systems. She also is down on DRM, calling Apple's DRM 'a pain.'"

Comments

Have You Ever Noticed?

[eldavojohn]

Former RIAA head Hilary Rosen now believes that the RIAA is wrong by pursuing their lawsuits of individuals for using P2P programs.

Have you ever noticed that it's easier to assume the higher moral ground when your job is no longer riding on your views & political statements? Now for your entertainment, you can not only hear it from United States Generals but also former RIAA employees!

Re:Have You Ever Noticed?

[Blimey85]

DRM no matter who it's from is still DRM. Just because you haven't hit a limit with Apple's DRM doesn't mean that other users haven't. IMHO there is absolutely no way to effectively stop pirating. Maybe if we started beheading people for pirating we might be able to slow things down but I'm not certain that even something that drastic would have much effect.

We all have this "I'll never get caught" attitude and so no matter what happens to the next guy, we feel immune. Lots of people got sued by the RIAA but I never had a problem finding any song I was looking for. Soulseek still worked as well as ever. Their threats and subsequent action in the form of lawsuits did nothing to deter me nor millions of other people from pirating songs, movies, whatever.

So what good does DRM, threats, lawsuits, or any of the other tactics that have been used, what good does any of it do? It doesn't stop piracy. It doesn't even seem to slow it down. Torrent sites get taken down and new ones pop up. Software such as Napster gets shut down and other software comes along to fill the void. The train keeps on rolling. The people who get hurt are the ones who our buying the material legally or who have bought hardware that has restrictions. My Sony network music player (can't really call it an mp3 player since it's primary use is to play atrac files) allows me to transfer whatever I want to the player, but I can't move the songs back off the player to my computer. I had a Creativer player previously that allowed me to move everything both ways and it was a lot less hassle. Sure Sony's format takes up a lot less space and I like the fact that it's offered but I'd also like to be able to convert back to mp3 if I want to move the songs off the device. Especially songs that I've kept in the mp3 format. These limits haven't stopped me from pirating music, they've just frustrated me and made me consider devices from other companies that don't have the same limitations.

The media companies need to realize that there is a way to make more profit but it's not by forcing limitations on us. Make things easier and more available through legit channels and more and more people will abandon piracy. Give us downloads that we can use however we want for a very small fee and people will flock to that. Give us tv shows without commericals for $.99 each that are avail the same day as the episode airs on tv and let us subscribe to the shows we want to see. I'd pay good money for that service. As it is I download my shows the day after they air and I never see any commercials plus I get the widescreen versions even though I don't have an hdtv. The downloaded episodes look better on my tv than what I can get from using my dvr. I'm not going to watch the commericals either way but I am willing to pay for a high quality, fast downloading, widescreen version of my favorite shows as long as it's better than what I'm doing now. Give it to me sooner, faster, and for only maybe $.99 and you'll rake in the dough.

Okay, fess up

[Foerstner]

...which one of you hacked Hillary Rosen's blog...?

We've seen this cycle before...

[davecb]

I'm in the middle of trying to post the following to the Huffington Post, but it seems not to be able to see this particular Hilary Rosen posting... we may have a link to a very new article.

I suspect that the RIAA members are just re-living the tempest in a teapot we had in the software businesses: we used to ship programs with all sorts of expensive copy protection devices.

One of my employers then shipped their product without protection and saw no difference whatsoever in the rate of copying. So they dropped the "dongle", and saved precious dollars by doing so.

Now my publisher and others are doing the same thing with electronic copies of their books, with similar good results.

I expect we'll see the same with both music and movies. Commercial copiers will be dealt with by the courts, and individuals will be so minor a problems as to be ignored.

--dave

"A pain"?

[Pink Tinkletini]

Nowhere in the linked article do these words exist. What Rosen actually says is that Apple's "propietary [sic] DRM just bugs me," which is a quite different message in tone and substance--it's not the DRM itself that she finds annoying, but rather Apple's unwillingness to share.

Note to submitters: Don't invent quotes out of thin air, especially when you encase them in quote marks, for Chrissake.

Re:Dear Hilary

[cbiltcliffe]

No, I think we should take this and publicize it as much as possible. Point out to your MP, Senator, Resident Dictator, or whoever that the person who used to espouse DRM and P2P lawsuits is now saying they're pointless and "a pain."
A bunch of /.ers have very little pull in political circles, but Hillary Rosen, even though she's been a PITA before, now appears to be on our side. And she does have a lot of pull in political circles. Let's use that to our advantage.

Please...

[l3prador]

Futhermore, she adds, "You guys are right, ok? So will someone please be my friend?"

The most liberal DRM...

[Mateo_LeFou]

Would you like me to put you in the Loosest Set of Handcuffs ever invented? $18.95 today only.