Hilary Rosen On Why The Recording Industry Loves Tech
from the yeah,-right dept
Hilary Rosen, the head of the RIAA, who has done as much as possible to help destroy the companies she works for (while claiming that she’s really protecting them) has written a short column for Business 2.0, trying to explain (stop laughing) why the music industry loves technology. It’s a real sob story. She claims that she criminalizes her best customers because she loves music (clearly, I’m paraphrasing – but her words are so biased in the other direction, I figure it’s only fair). She tries to align the music industry with tech companies, by pointing out that tech companies protect their software from copying the same way the music industry tries to protect their songs. She also says that clearly the music industry loves technology because they’ve spent so much developing new business models. What she leaves out is that they were forced to do so, kicking and screaming, and then only agreed to new business models that were clearly doomed to failure – none of which actually offered consumers what they wanted. She closes by saying she’s proud of her record in leading the music industry through this time of change. I wonder how history will look back on her reign over a dying industry that still doesn’t understand how to treat its own customers.
