Who Is She, Anyway?

Hilary Rosen is not as naive as you might imagine. In fact, she believes that MP3s are the format of the future, and spends a good deal of time trying to convince record executives of it. What she and the RIAA have been fighting for is a file-sharing method that upholds the profit margins of the industry by communicating to consumers the basic idea that taking music without paying for it is wrong. “But by moralizing the issue… Rosen and her colleagues have failed to grasp the fact that they’ve already lost. File-sharing has become part of pop culture.”