Former RIAA chief makes plea for "consumer rights"
posted May 10th 2005 7:00AM
Okay, so some invocation of the phrase "chickens coming home to roost" might be in order on this one. Former CEO of
the RIAA Hilary Rosen is mad, real mad, that Apple has established a lock-in between the iPod and the iTunes Music
Store: all those tracks she downloaded from walmart.com just will not work on her brand new iPod. We're not sure
exactly how long ago she left her post so maybe she's just not following these things anymore, but she thinks the only
two sources of music playable on the iPod are from the iTMS or from your own ripped CDs — apparently she's never
visited sites like eMusic.com where you can download completely DRM-free tracks born fresh from Zion and play them on
any player, including the iPod, to your heart's content. And while tracks from the iTMS not playing on third-party
players because of Apple's flavor of DRM might be a legitimate complaint, the fact that Microsoft-flavored DRM'd tracks
won't play on the iPod has more to do with Microsoft than it does with Stevie J. and his "laconic cool." And you know,
where was all of this sudden sympathy with consumer rights and anti-monopoly sentiments during any of the 17 years she
was a major player in the music business, eh? It makes our hearts bleed to see the former mouthpiece of the RIAA
whining from the other side of the fence, so we've whipped out the world's tiniest violin for the occasion.
[Via slashdot]
dont forget about everyones favorite russian music mafia....allofmp3.com
Uh, look at the headline banner "The Huffington Post". Seems it is a new site as of May 9th, 2005.
You will notice that this "article" is actually written by Ariana Huffington, and is making fun of Hilary Rosen - who we already knew was an idiot.
"the fact that Microsoft-flavored DRM’d tracks won’t play on the iPod has more to do with Microsoft than it does with Stevie J."
is this true?
Well, I certainly hope you've secured the appropriate rights for that World's Tiniest Violin music! Otherwise you my be subject to the World's Tiniest Lawsuit....
So lame. Someone mentioned in another site how you can't use the other services such as Napster on a Mac, but Mac users aren't complaining (at least I hope not).
People always complaining about not having a choice, but they have anything but. The mp3 player market is totally flooded, so there's a lot of choice there. There are lots of different services, many of which she mentions in "her" article.
And yes, it also deserves a mention that this is A. Huffington's website. She was part of the circus governor election here in California, a total lefty-extremist. I am by no means a republican, but I am anti-extremist of any sort.
Fishes,
narco.
This lady has a very valid point. Theres no way in Satan's hell that I would buy a dvd and not be able to play it on my dvd player of my choice. The same goes with CDs. Yet people seem to find this accecptable with music downloads.
"Theres no way in Satan's hell that I would buy a dvd and not be able to play it on my dvd player of my choice."
That's a bad argument - in the case of music, the music doesn't stay on the DVD. People take the songs off to put them on players. So you can go out an buy any of a million different MP3 players, and "play" any CD on them. I can buy any CD on earth and put it on my iPod. Or, I can *CHOOSE* (operative word here) to buy songs from the iTunes Music Store to put on my iPod. I don't see myself switching brands of players from the iPod to anything else in the near or far future, so I have no problem buying iTunes Music Store files.
Aaron is right. The article is not really from Rosen. Check out this article on the "article" - http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/05/09/rosen_joke_jobs/
Thats fair enough, but you should still be able to download from any music store to the player of your choice. Personally id rather have a nw-hd3/5 over an ipod but id try itunes if Apple and Sony worked toghether. OK its never going to happen so its back to p2p for me.
Thats fair enough, but you should still be able to download from any music store to the player of your choice. Personally id rather have a nw-hd3/5 over an ipod but id try itunes if Apple and Sony worked toghether. OK its never going to happen so its back to p2p for me.
What's even better is the fact that a few newspapers have interviewed Arianna and she professed this is real. Guys, I think it's about time we contemplated the seriously f*kced up idea that a former RIAA chairman and executive officer actually has no clue about any details in the current music struggle. Way to fan the flame...
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/features/3174167
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000912790
http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/lifestyle/bal-to.blog10may10,1,6051433.story?coll=bal-artslife-today&ctrack=1&cset=true
The second that online music stores get rid of the DRM bullshit is the same second I stop getting my digital music from sources that already don't have the DRM bullshit, and that the RIAA complains so much about.
#2, #11 --
Uh, check out the rest of the site. If Arianna's pretending to be Hillary Rosen, she's also pretending to be Larry David, Quincy Jones, any number of political wonks, oh yeah, and Walter Cronkite.
Oddly enough, without exception Huffington plays the rest of these "impressions" straight, Hil's the only one who comes off like an ignorant jackass. Funny, that.
I agree with Oh Snap. Maybe my satire detector is a bit weak, but most of the other articles seem legit. Maybe The Register article was the fake?
Also, why post this? It seems a lot of work for a little satire.
Richard Bradley
What is Hilary Rosen Smoking?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/2005/05/09/index.html
>the fact that Microsoft-flavored DRM’d tracks won’t play on the iPod has more to do with Microsoft than it does with Stevie J.
I don't see how you figure that. Every time Real makes Rhapsody compatible with the iPod, Apple goes ballistic. Apple has NEVER publicly indicated they would be open to competing services playing on the iPod... on the contrary they have stated repeatedly that they feel the value they offer is in the integration betwen the hardware, software and music store.
Which is really the only thing that kept me from getting an iPod. I love music subscription services (my fav right now is fye.com ) and for iPods to start supporting them, Steve Jobs would have to decide he was WRONG about something... and that can take years...
>the fact that Microsoft-flavored DRM’d tracks won’t play on the iPod has more to do with Microsoft than it does with Stevie J.
But microsoft doesn't make portable MP3 players, the argument works - sort of, but look at it this way. Every single one of the thousands of MP3 players in the world play windows media. iPOD is effectively the only one that doesn't. (not to mention it doesn't play popular open source formats that would cost nothing to support)
On the flip side, iPOD is the ONLY player that plays apples retarded proprietary format.
Obviously you can't say its MS v. Apple, its everything v. apple, which unfortunately fore everyone else is still a pretty good fight.
Yea guys, I have never heard something so ridiculus before in my life. Apple is the one that chose to make the ipod only compatible with the itunes music store, and how many milliseconds do you think it would be before windows accepted apple's offer, if apple ever decided to extend it.
>On the flip side, iPOD is the ONLY player that plays apples retarded proprietary format
I don't think there is one DRM system that is less retarded than any other DRM system.
MP3 for Dummies ...
. don't eat apples they make you fat
. apples are bad for you.. it turns you into a geek
. ipods are for rabbits, trix are for hookers
. did someone say control freak
People must be stupid. If you don't like the iPod/iTMS product/service Apple has every right to market, there is a really simple solution: don't buy an iPod. Got an iPod as a gift but don't like iTMS, why complain? You can sell the iPod on eBay and buy two other digital music players that work with the service of your choice. The control freaks are the ones trying to tell Apple how to run their business.
If she have read walmart's notices she might not have been surprised:
'Note: NOT compatible with iPod'
Beside, Apples AAC format is standard, not a propitar format. the fairplay drm is. That's where the problem lies.
BURN!
WTF? The anti-consumer filesharing lawsuits pioneered under her reign at RIAA are the whole reason iTunes came into being. She drove consumers into the arms of DRM, now she's whining about it? Screw you....
Ah yes...Hypocrite Hillary. She really oughta just shut her cakehole.