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Hilary Rosen Repents

Hilary Rosen, former RIAA Head Nutjob Litigator, Purchaser of Senators & Ghostwriter of One-sided Copyright Laws, has seen the light.

In a recent leftwing Huffington Post blog, Ms. Rosen decries the current state of the industry where the focus of current profits are based around lawsuits demanding thousands of dollars for every Em-Pee-Three found on music fan's criminals computers:

Commenters on this site regularly accuse me of suing college students and other "innocents" in my past role as Chairman and CEO of the Recording Indsutry Assciation of America The lawsuits against individuals initiated by the RIAA was started after I left. When I was there, our litigation focus was on those who were bulding commercial businesses on the backs of the creative community without their agreement or participation. (sic)

Her arguments go on to state that her sole intention were to rid the world of the Evil Napsters and otherwise.

This editor is torn on the subject of file sharing — it is Sonikmatter, LLCs absolute belief that we cannot condone this sort of activity. At the very same time, the vast majority of musics that I have purchased over the last ten years have been almost solely due to recommendations given by others on file sharing sites. My entire Latin American collection was influenced by posted musics as have been my recent foray into Alt-Country. Where would I have heard Neko Case if not through sites like Stereogum music.for-robots or Gorilla Vs Bear — all of whom are of just as questionable legality as AllOfYouKnowYouAreGivingYourCreditCardToTheRussianMob dot Com.

While agreeing that file sharing may be legally wrong and that the sharing of entire albums is entirely immoral, how stupid is it to sue the fan base that makes up the bulk of your sales. It isn't the same as going after software pirates who will never have occasion to buy your product because these idiots feel that because there new 17 inch MacBook Pro cost $3500 they are morally entitled to obtaining anything that can run on it — no these are the same fans that will run to the store and pick up the full lossless version of the album if given the chance, as supported by the fact that during the latter run of the old napster showing the most growth in purchased music sales in recent history. So while illegal and somewhat immoral, why would a business want to kill the cash cow that lays the golden goose and other mixed metaphors?

Read more of Hilary's near conversion to the world of Stallman — Hilary Rosen: For the Record, for What It's Worth