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Hilary Rosen Loves Creative Commons 271

Posted by timothy from the free-to-express-herself dept.
13.7Billion Years writes "Former RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen has written a piece in Wired extolling the virtues of Lawrence Lessig's Creative Commons licensing, providing such juicy tidbits as 'I'm still cynical about its origins, but I've come to love Creative Commons,' and 'the industry ought to embrace Creative Commons as an agile partner providing tools for new ways to do business.' She's not quite ready to pooh-pooh the current all-or-nothing licensing regime just yet but this sounds like good progress."
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Hilary Rosen Loves Creative Commons More

Hilary Rosen Loves Creative Commons

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  • Convenient (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:07PM (#10637056) Journal
    Shame she's not in a position of power anymore. Funny how this happens after she leaves.
    • Being in favor of Creative Commons means being in favor of rightsholders making decisions about sharing their works (as well as remixing, etc.)

      But to be in favor of rightsholders making those decisions also means accepting them when they decide *not* to share.

      If we only care when a rightsholder decides to share, and not if they choose otherwise, then we really don't care about them making that decision.

      • say it! (Score:3, Informative)

        by poptones ( 653660 )
        I went through that phase of hilary hating a loooong time ago. Then one day I went online and found MP3.com had launched their "digital vault" which (they argued) allowed them to offer ANY music for download to folks. It wasn't just that I thought this to be incredibly stupid and doomed to failure, but more than that it showed this "pioneer" just another ethically clueless money chasing adventure.

        The RIAA sucks ass, and I'm proud to say I've not given them a penny of my money in years. I am a regular shopp

      • Re:Supporting rightsholders' decisions... (Score:4, Insightful)

        by An Onerous Coward ( 222037 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @08:46PM (#10637754) Homepage
        Damn straight. If a copyright holder decides to make full use of the vastly overinflated collection of "rights" that infest modern copyright law, I have no respect for their decision to do so.

        Now, if copyrights were much shorter, and copyright law contained clear, sensible guidelines about derivative works that would allow for creativity, and all DRM schemes were required to uphold those guidelines, then the decision "not to share" would be a perfectly respectable one.

        Creators should have a certain level of control over their work. By default, copyright law grants them "rights" far in excess of that level. In such a climate, the decision not to share amounts to being a complete and utter prick.

        [This post licensed under the "Do Whatever the Hell You Want With It" License v.2.0 or later.]

        • Preaching to the choir, eh? :) From the article:

          Lessig also complained about the Copyright Term Extension Act, which adds several years to the terms of protected works. I countered: Farmers can leave their property to their children; why shouldn't songwriters be able to leave their songs to their children?

          So does she figure that the particular portion of the Constitution that gives Congress the power to secure for a limited time the rights to Creative Works to Artists, for the long-term goal of securing

    • Re:Convenient (Score:2, Insightful)

      by AstroDrabb ( 534369 )
      This is how all political people or people influenced by money are. She acts one way while she is getting "paid", and changes her tune once she is no longer a part of that organization. It is really sad. She says this now, however, if she were to get her old position back, I would bet any sum of cash that she would not be singing the same tune. The RIAA would never go for a license like this, it doesn't give them enough "control".

  • Open Source Tunes (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Rightcoast ( 807751 )
    The issue also includes a 16 track Cd with Chuck D, Beastie Boys, Danger Mouse and others that can be sampled, burned, and used under Creative Commons

  • Rosen's view of copyright.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by doormat ( 63648 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:09PM (#10637078) Homepage Journal
    "Farmers can leave their property to their children; why shouldn't songwriters be able to leave their songs to their children?"

    Uh, perhaps because thats not what the original intent of copyright. Copyright is supposed to be for a limited time, and then to enter the public domain. Property is forever (well, 'til the world ends).

    • Re:Rosen's view of copyright.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by pilgrim23 ( 716938 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:25PM (#10637225)
      Indeed so. I have no idea who is owed all the back copy write fees for the works of Aristotle. Think of all those monks in the middle ages making their unauthorized quill pin "rips" of his work... Or the plays of Aristophanes From circa 400BC till 2004 AD there is one heck of a back interest payment. Definitly for the Birds... The current view of copy write law amounts to stupidity. The whole idea was to protect the IP for a "Limited Period of Time".
    • Agreed, also why should a few years work for one, support them their children, their children's children... for the rest of their lives, why everyone else's children have to keep working?

      Its not like they don't get compensated for the work, ( Sometimes by astronomical amounts ) but their grand children as well?

      Everyone else has to invest, to leave something to their children, apparently If grandad's an author then its kickback and relax.

      • That's why they have high inheritance tax - if you didn't earn it, then you really shouldn't be enjoying it that much.

        Maybe they should have a copyright inheritance tax or something - upon death, 50% of the copyright revenues goes to the government, and after two generations most companies won't bother to hold on to it.
    • Let the writer leave his typewriter and his desk to his children. The farmer doesn't leave his corn and wheat to his children; he sells them and gives up all rights to further control of the sweat of his labor. If the farmer adds a new building or buys a new tractor, so can the writer buy a new typewriter.
  • "Hilary Rosen Loves Creative Commons..."

    And in her next interview, she'll tell us how her newly-sprouted wings and "lighter-than-air defense" helped her team take Old Nick's Cup in Game Four of the Ninth Circle Hockey League playoffs.

  • Only problem: (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Nice that Mrs Rosen things Creative Commons is nice and all. Only problem: Nobody cares about Mrs Rosen anymore since she isn't RIAA chief anymore.

  • man tar? (Score:2, Funny)

    by fiddlesticks ( 457600 )
    from the FA:

    'After spending the summer decompressing in Italy with my family'

    sorry, she spent the summer running

    tar -zxfv ./

    on herself, or her family too?

    wtf does 'decompressing' mean if you aren't a deep sea diver or a tar/zip file?

    is she aware of the patents on some de-compression work?

    • sorry, she spent the summer running tar -zxfv ./ on herself, or her family too?

      No, she spent her summer decompressing MP3s of member labels' recordings to /dev/audio. I'd bet record industry executives get free MP3s as a perk.

  • In other news... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by davmoo ( 63521 )
    And next week we'll see Saddam Hussein proclaiming that he is in favor of democracy.

    I trust Hilary Rosen to really support Creative Commons about as much as I expect Bill Gates to support Linux.
    • This isn't some trippy mind warp concept here.

      It basically boils down to "I support the right for artists to license their output in any way they see fit. I expect you to do the same for those who see fit to sell it in overpriced crappy albums" though perhaps not in so many words.

      Frankly, a lot of the people on the "closed" side of the IP line fail to understand that if they deny the rights of the "open" side, they're denying some of the base concepts of IP. Next time you hear people talk about how GPL

    • Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) * on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @10:59PM (#10638642) Homepage Journal
      And next week we'll see Saddam Hussein proclaiming that he is in favor of democracy.

      I trust Hilary Rosen to really support Creative Commons about as much as I expect Bill Gates to support Linux.

      People change, as do what influences them. These people in protect their opinions because of their vested interests. If the situation changes, then their point of view may change too. Any smart person is capable of accepting the benefits of someone else's point of view if there are indeed real benefits.

      Remember Hilary Rosen is no longer in charge of the RIAA, so she doesn't have to play the same game, even if she still believes in the mantra she preached. In fact reading the article shows that she understands that the record industry is in need of change, but as the same time people should not accept everything for nothing. She sees the CC as choice made by the artist about the accessibility to their works, which is different from someone deciding to do something with a copyrighted piece of work that the copyright does not permit.

  • Why is she saying this? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Profane MuthaFucka ( 574406 ) <busheatskok@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:18PM (#10637161) Homepage Journal
    So she was only doing what she was doing before because she was paid to do it. That's not a big surprise. The only question that comes to mind is who's paying the bitch now?

    • Re:Why is she saying this? (Score:5, Informative)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @08:10PM (#10637544)
      who's paying the bitch now?

      The answer to that is on page 2 of the article...
      Hilary Rosen, former chair and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, is a business and political commentator on CNBC and an adviser to media and technology companies.

      Basically, she's a professional pundit now.

  • Really odd (Score:4, Interesting)

    by blueskies ( 525815 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:19PM (#10637169) Journal
    No one finds it really odd that suddenly she writes an article supporting the CC? What's in it for her? What is the underlying motive?

    Maybe she is trying to subvert the CC from within?

  • another day... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by numbski ( 515011 ) * <numbski@@@hksilver...net> on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:21PM (#10637187) Homepage Journal
    another slashdot spamming script.

    Goood lord. :\

    Anyway, any step toward sanity is a good one, however embracing a license isn't enough for me to start singing around a campfire with them.

    Stop suing your customers, then perhaps we'll talk.

    BTW, link 'o the day. CmdrTaco on TechTV!
    http://www.g4techtv.com/flashpop.aspx?vid eo_key=88 92

  • The RIAA's attitude in a nutshell (Score:5, Insightful)

    by techno-vampire ( 666512 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:21PM (#10637188) Homepage
    From the article: In a contest of greed versus theft, I suppose I chose greed as the morally superior position.

    The RIAA is basing its position on the false dichotomy of either greed or theft. They can't seem to understand that it's possible to protect the artist's rights without draconion measures or royalties that would put a robber baron to shame. Isn't it a shame that Hilary Rosen didn't learn this until she'd left the RIAA and had no more influence over their thinking?

    • "They can't seem to understand that it's possible to protect the artist's rights without draconion measures or royalties that would put a robber baron to shame."

      Do you think the royalties earned by artists on musical works are too high? Are the artists being too -- there's that word again -- greedy?

      FWIW, royalties typically top out at not much more than a buck for most CDs (for some it's more, and for some it's less). If Slashdotters could convince all those artists currently making a dollar per CD

      • Do you think the royalties earned by artists on musical works are too high? Are the artists being too -- there's that word again -- greedy?

        Good question, and a good point. No, it's not the royalties paid to the artists that are too high, it's those claimed by the production companies as I understand it. I wouldn't mind the total royalties so much if more actually went to the artists, but most of it goes to the middle-men who create nothing but take their share off the top.

      • I still haven't heard *your* arguement as to why I should respect the artifical barrier known as copyright, why I should respect the RIAA et al who have been convicted of price fixing's, and why I should bother to support idea monopolists' efforts to keep the masses ignorant.

        In the end its all moot, the technology to make copies are here and here to stay. Unless we go back to the old Soviet Union style rules where photocopiers were under armed guard, information will flow. Flow dispite the lawsuits, mor

        • I still haven't heard *your* arguement as to why I should respect the artifical barrier known as copyright

          Because the government has guns.

          why I should respect the RIAA et al who have been convicted of price fixing's

          You don't need to; alternatives to major labels exist.

          and why I should bother to support idea monopolists' efforts to keep the masses ignorant.

          You don't need to; you can educate your friends and family about the issue and about the alternatives.

      • Do you think the royalties earned by artists on musical works are too high? Are the artists being too -- there's that word again -- greedy?

        No. Actually, the groupthink is that most recording artists are underpaid rather than overpaid, largely because the label deducts expenses before paying royalties to the recording artist. Read "The Problem with Music" by Steve Albini [negativland.com] for the gory details. On the other hand, the label pays mechanical royalties to the songwriter's publisher before deducting expenses; a

  • Err did I miss (Score:3, Funny)

    by Alci12 ( 698263 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:23PM (#10637202)
    Hell freezing over?

  • Only natural. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OccidentalSlashy ( 809265 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:25PM (#10637218)
    I've seen it so many times before ... at first you are compelled to hang around with the artists and bohemians, no matter what your parents say. This stage is followed by a sort of dull resentment or sometimes outright hostility towards their loose ways and apparent lack of motivation, culminating in a blow-up attempt to get their money, smash their guitars, whatever (that's the part we all saw in her, and hated). Possibly this stems from an inner feeling that she is plain not good enough to be part of that community.

    But self-loathing cannot stand on its own, and eventually, it is re-directed in a healthy way -- "I LOVE the commons! What POSSIBILITY!" Yes, Hilary has come full circle at last. The healing has begun. The flame of art has travelled on!

    Welcome, Hilary! You're on the good side now! :-)

  • She loves a free lunch. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:25PM (#10637220) Homepage Journal
    Of course Rosen loves people giving away their creative products. Disney has made a fortune from copyrighting public domain fairy tales. Rosen sees dollars from peddling CC works without paying the authors, once corporate execs find a 21st Century version of the Disney scam. She's cynical about the origins of the CC license, because that community successfully opposed her IP cartel so often.
    • Disney has made a fortune from copyrighting public domain fairy tales.

      That is overly simplified. Disney didn't co-opt public domain works, they don't own the original fairy tales and don't suddenly own the original works, they can only copyright their own variation of it and its sub-derivatives. Others are still free to make works based on those original stories provided they don't take designs from Disney's works. You might not have noticed, but for a lot of Disney's animated movies, there have been
  • READ THE F*CKING ARTICLE!!!!!!!!!!

    As much as she has been disagreeable in the past, I think we should be forgiving and help her ever more so to understand our train of thought and where we, like Lessig, are coming from.

  • Hilary Rosen (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Infonaut ( 96956 ) <infonaut@gmail.com> on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:26PM (#10637235) Homepage Journal
    In this article [wired.com] Rosen revealed a bit of herself. She's not the one-dimensional creature that a lot of RIAA-haters have made her out to be. Her position at the RIAA was never easy:

    The presumption in these attacks was that Rosen was calling the plays for the music business and not the other way around. She seems to prefer it that way; she gets paid $1 million a year to shelter the executives from criticism. But in fact, according to those closest to her, she's not the hard-liner in the crusade against file-sharing. Yes, she's the frontwoman. But there are five CEOs backing her up - and some of them make her look like Mary Poppins. "They still think they should put teenagers in jail," says technology guru Esther Dyson. In fact, Rosen tried to steer the labels toward the online future long before they saw it coming. In the mid-'90s, Rosen brought Dyson to a conference of music executives to brief them on how technology would transform their business. Dyson described for them the inevitability of digital delivery, an eventuality Rosen says she had begun to understand but wanted her bosses to hear from an outsider. But as Dyson spoke, the label executives became defensive, then furious. By all accounts, the meeting devolved into a shouting match.
    Sure, as the head honcho at the RIAA she was on the wrong side of a lot of issues, but she's not exactly Pol Pot either.

    • I've read that about her in the past, and I suppose it's true. That illustrates the problem with corporate spokespersons: What they say is essentially meaningless, a mere echo chamber of whatever will make their stockholders the most money. Does the spokesperson believe what he or she is saying? Not necessarily. Is what the spokesperson saying true? Maybe, maybe not. So of what value is it? Not much. Just a way to peer into the soul-dead eyes of the corporate persona.

      I'm happy for her that she is

      • That illustrates the problem with corporate spokespersons: What they say is essentially meaningless, a mere echo chamber of whatever will make their stockholders the most money.

        You make a very valuable point, and it begs the question (for Americans at least): How does this compare to political spokespersons? Having worked in DC I can say that most people in Washington really are motivated primarily by ideology and a desire to improve the country. They differ in their belief about how the country should o

    • Thanks for posting the link to the Wired article. Interesting that she would ask the Oxford students if it pissed them off to have to give up the rights to whatever they create during their studies. Given that this is how the recording industry has been operating for the past century, I wonder where she was going with that.

      Another great line: In order for artists to record music, she says, they - and record labels - have to make money.

      Not true. Musicians make money by performing live, not by selling CDs.

      • In standard recording contracts, the expenses of producing, manufacturing and distributing CDs are all deducted from the Musician's share of the profits, usually leaving ZERO.

        Not if the artist writes his own songs. The songwriter gets his share even if the album doesn't recoup, and Hilary knows this. Record labels using songs based on Sampling Plus-licensed works don't need to pay the original song's songwriter in order to clear a sample.

    • Re:Hilary Rosen (Score:5, Insightful)

      by chrisd ( 1457 ) * <chrisd@dibona.com> on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @08:26PM (#10637640) Homepage
      So since she wasn't murdering people and instead concentrated on suing 12 year old s and reducing our freedoms, she deserves a cookie or something?

      Chris DiBona

      • Re:Hilary Rosen (Score:3, Interesting)

        by quantaman ( 517394 )
        So since she wasn't murdering people and instead concentrated on suing 12 year old s and reducing our freedoms, she deserves a cookie or something?
        And look at all the great PR that's gotten them, besides if she didn't do something as drastic it is very likely her replacement would of (and perhaps more). In the struggle for freedom sometimes the greatest sacrifice is by those who would have you believe they work for the enemy so that they may fight them from within. Now I don't believe for a second Rosen

  • Sole Stated Purpose of Copyright (Score:5, Informative)

    by Roger_Wilco ( 138600 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @07:28PM (#10637243) Homepage

    It has nothing to do with protecting anybody, but only encouraging progress. See Article I, section 8, clause 8 of the US constitution [house.gov]:

    Congress has the power to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

  • It's like watching an "ex" politicain make an educated statement so that when his tell-all book comes out supporting all his previous statements unchanged, he can say "but look, I've been on both sides now, and I was right all along."

    The Innane Mrs. R. is pulling the classic prodigal son routine. She is now straying from her family, to be reunited later. At which time they will kill the fatted DRM Budget for her homecomming.

    I don't buy it for a second. When I see her *SUE* the RIAA for being draconian

  • Ms. Rosen argued: "Farmers can leave their property to their children; why shouldn't songwriters be able to leave their songs to their children?"

    There's at least one difference; when I die, my heirs must pay considerable inheritance taxes. Do there exist inheritance taxes on ownership of copyright? If it's to be considered a kind of property, such taxes should exist (or they shouldn't on real property; personally I believe that each person should do their best on their own, i.e. inheritance should be forb

    • You've been out of the loop for a while. The Republicans wisely got rid of "The Death Tax" [gopusa.com], and in their enthusiasm to eliminate it, they even voted down a Democrat proposal to keep the estate taxes only on money above and beyond the first billion of net worth.

      Thanks to the foresight of our leaders in Washington, we are all safe to pursue the American Dream of working hard, skimming a bit off the top, sticking it to a bunch of pensioners, and ensuring your descendants to the fifth generation never h
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • I am so glad I wore my old shoes today...closing tab now.
  • Any Slashdotters out there read the Washington Post? I was surprised to see her name atop this op-ed piece [washingtonpost.com] on Saturday, Oct. 16. The column ends with this brief description of her:

    The writer is former chairman and chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America and a volunteer for gay rights causes.
  • I do not believe for a moment that my kids would have any interest in my tomatoes.


    The artist leaves the guitar...that's the farm....

  • Add this in with a Red Sox World Series win (if it happens), and we'll have two guaranteed signs of the Apocalypse.

    Get everything you wanted out of life, and get it now. Get on good terms with your deity. End's coming real fast, folks.

  • Ha (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ScrewMaster ( 602015 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @08:13PM (#10637557)
    I'm cynical about everything and anything that comes out of Hilary Rosen's mouth. In fact, anything that woman "embraces" is something I will need to be more careful about in the future. And that applies equally well to Cary Sherman and Jack Valenti, for that matter.

  • Funny Stuff (Score:3)

    by D+iz+a+n+k+Meister ( 609493 ) on Tuesday October 26, 2004 @09:36PM (#10638084) Journal
    Farmers can leave their property to their children; why shouldn't songwriters be able to leave their songs to their children?

    Ummmmmm, because songs aren't property, maybe, hmmmm?, maybe?

    But let's not go too far into dreamland. Yes, the current system of copyright can be antiquated and user unfriendly, and its enforcement can be discriminatory, but it has created a lot of wealth for individual artists, not just corporations. More important, it has created a vast body of art for the public.

    That the public doesn't own(yet, and probably never will), so it's not really for the public. I mean, I really don't get that statement. "It has created a vast body of content for the public to purchase" seems more appropriate.

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