Hilary Rosen + Her iPod = Great Publicity

We love the Hilary Rosen controversy sweeping the Web as we type.  Good Morning Silicon Valley's new (and appreciated) blog sums up the self-satisfied outrage:

"Fair-use advocates were likely choking on their cornflakes this morning after reading former RIAA President Hilary Rosen's first post to Arianna Huffington's new celebrity blog. In it, Rosen criticizes Apple's digital rights management scheme. “The new iPod my girlfriend gave me is a trap. Yeah, it is great looking and I really love the baby blue leather case but when, oh when, will Steve Jobs let me buy music from somewhere other than the Apple iTunes store and put it on my iPod? ... Of course the irony, the hysterical irony, of this is that Rosen was once one of DRM's biggest proponents, as Ernest Miller points out in this acerbic post to Corante."

People.  Did anyone stop and notice that Rosen's blog posting came on the very FIRST day that Huffington's new site went live?  (Helpfully, the sub-head of the "The Huffington Post" is "Delivering News and Opinion Since May 9, 2005")

The math is easy:  Mix the two biggest tech-cultural phenomena (blogging + iPods).  Add pinches of irony, celebrity and controversy.  Poof!  Internet marketing genius.

Let a million "did ya hear" links bloom..... 

...Besides, on the policy front, sure the RIAA is a big proponent of DRM.  They are now more than ever.  But, DRM is just a tactic of a bigger strategy focused on control.  And, the music industry wants as much control as possible.  If Apple gets too big for their britches, this throws off the control equation.

This is the same reason why the wireless companies aren't eagerly adopting iTunes wireless services.  No 800-pound gorilla wants to keep feeding bananas to a 600-pound gorilla.

UPDATE:  ZDNet's David Berlind on how Microsoft is using DRM to lap the field and create a "media monoculture"....

If a single player — be it one from Microsoft, Apple, Real Networks, Adobe (by virtue of its acquisition of Macromedia) or any other multimedia player — find its way into dominating the media player and/or the DRM categories, the result could be unprecedented leverage over the entertainment and media industries. 

Looking at the existing offerings, Microsoft is hands-down making all the right moves, having what appears to me to be an almost insurmountable head start

Ironically, Microsoft is using the shiny, sexy iPod as a perceptional shield as it does all the expansive and tough DRM work behind the (celebrity blogging) scenes.

Comments

[Robert K. Foster]

The Berlind article is based on the idea that Portable Media Centers (PMC) are indicators of DRM success by virtue of their market penetration. The idea being that since Apple does not have a portable video device they are way behind in the achievement of an Apple DRM monoculture. That argument is only as good as the sales of PMC devices, which many would say is dismal.

[Cheap Computers]

I think Microsoft is going to launch a iPod which would not be expensive and free from DRM scene,If Microsoft does this,it would be complete disaster for Apple...........
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