Sayonara Hilary...
RIAA chief to step down
By John Borland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
January 22, 2003, 5:35 PM PT
The chief executive officer of the Recording Industry Association of
America said Wednesday she would step down as head of the organization at
the end of 2003, after a controversial five years at its helm.
Hillary Rosen has presided over a transformation of the organization that
has matched the turmoil of the music industry since her ascension in 1998.
Once a trade organization little known outside music and policy circles,
the RIAA has become a household word known for its vigorous prosecution of
online piracy, and its role as the nemesis of file-swapping services from
Napster to Kazaa.
The outgoing chief executive said she wanted to spend more time with her
family.
"This has been an extremely difficult decision, but I know it is the right
one for my family," Rosen said in a statement. "Nonetheless, this is a
critical time and I have much to do in the coming months. We continue to
face unprecedented levels of online piracy as well as a changing market in
physical piracy here and abroad."
During the past several years, Rosen has served as a focal point for all
the criticism and complaints levied by advocates of unfettered technology.
Indeed, she was featured in the most recent issue of Wired magazine as "The
Most Hated Name in Music"--a bold statement in an industry notoriously rife
with avaricious record producers and label executives.
She has been cast by her critics as an unswerving enemy of technology, an
impression she has tried with little success to dispel by saying she did
not oppose peer-to-peer or Internet technologies per se, but only their use
to distribute music without permission.
Nevertheless, she--or the legal strategies of the group she has
headed--have had as significant an impact on the direction and future of
Net technologies as virtually any technology company in business.
The legal battles against Napster ultimately ended the life of the fastest
growing community in the Net's history. The enforcement actions indirectly
helped spur a generation of programmers to find ways of replicating
Napster's actions that couldn't be shut down by the courts, leading to
services such as Kazaa, the various Gnutella software clients and their
progeny.
More recently, Rosen has extended an olive branch to the technology
industry, worrying that rhetoric on both sides had created an artificial
gulf. Last week, she signed an agreement to work with counterparts in the
Business Software Alliance and the Computer Systems Policy Project, each of
which represent large technology companies on common goals.
Under her tenure, the organization has also been attacked for
non-technological issues, such as lobbying activity on a controversial
musicians' contractual issue called "work for hire" that has galvanized
opposition to major labels among some artists.
She's also won accolades for her work at the industry organization. In
1997, the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California
gave her an award for her work supporting artists' freedom of expression.
Ironically, Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow--a
figure who would later become one of Rosen's chief intellectual antagonists
for his insistence on unfettered information flow online--was given the
same honor at the same time.
Music industry executives praised her work on news of her announced departure.
"Hilary Rosen has been a tremendous advocate for the recorded music
industry," said David Munns, CEO of EMI Recorded Music North America. "She
has been incredibly effective in raising awareness about the important
value and impact that music has on our lives, our culture and our economy.
The RIAA will conduct a search for Rosen's replacement during the course of
the year, the group said. Cary Sherman will retain his current role as
president of the organization.
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