Wired News: RIAA’s Rosen Sets

Wired News: RIAA’s Rosen Sets Sights on ISPs

Sense or nonsense, Rosen said during her keynote address at the Midem music conference in France that ISPs should pay a fee to the music industry to compensate for those losses. ISPs could then pass the cost along to their song-swapping customers.

This is absolutely outrageous. The music industry wants to get paid for doing nothing!!

They didn’t invest in the infrastructure or technology to make on-line music practical. They didn’t go to the trouble of making music available in a format that was practical for on-line distribution. They have vigourously attacked anyone who has taken steps to make it possible.

They have insulted and abused their customer base for on-line music distribution, not only calling the early and not-so-early adopters criminals, but going as far as taking legal action against some of them.

They failed to sell people what they wanted by failing to publish & distribute their back catalogs and failing to invest in new acts after indulging their urge to merge. At the same time, they killed or crippled the hundreds of new acts they had already signed by keeping them on contract while failing to release or promote their albums.

And now, after fucking things up completely, after insulting music lovers and innovative technologies, they want us to pay them for their ineptitude. It is absolute bullshit!