At the end of the year Hilary Rosen will step down as chief of the Recording Industry Association of America. She bears a great deal of responsibility for its reign of terror, but there’s no particular reason to think that it will behave itself any more after she’s gone. Here’s the Register’s typical pithy take on her departure:
”The Recording Industry Association of America’s chief Hilary Rosen is to step down after five calamitous years shilling for the music distribution cartel.
”In that period the pigopoly she represented squandered vast resources it could usefully have spent on creating alternative digital distribution channels on litigation against people who want to share music. Paradoxically, the reactionary Rosen is probably single-handedly the person most responsible for the now popular notion that we should get it all for free.
“Rosen’s vilest deed was not the crucifixion of Napster, but her determination to strangle Internet radio at birth. Rather than seeing it as a useful publicity medium, the RIAA fought long and dirty to burden stations with punitive royalties and administrative demands.”
