b.cognosco

Christine Reed writes: As a 20-year-plus veteran of the music industry, I can tell you that while you may think that Hilary Rosen only did what she was told to do by industry executives, you are sorely mistaken. She's first of all a lot smarter than most of them, and far more savvy about related policy and Capitol Hill. She's the one with the whip in her hand, trust me. [...]

Hilary Rosen deserves every bit of the criticism she's getting. She has done nothing to turn the situation into a win/win for everyone when she had the power and intelligence to do so. She has had advice, suggestions, plans, outlines... hell, a road map of what to do to keep everyone happy and has ignored all of them. For example, the industry has known for years that work had to begin untangling the licenses for publishing rights, and many of the labels have still not begun to do so. It's no wonder the artists are upset and the public ends up paying for the problem. They have also known that unless they learned to cooperate and work together they would all be doomed -- and now, unfortunately, that is the direction they are heading. [...]

Reed was responding to the January 27 column in which the authors conjured an image of Rosen as hapless lapdog of industry tycoons. Bah. Ptooey.