Pitchfork

| Posted Monday, August 4, 2003 06:00:00 Pitchfork Central Time |

Everyone's favorite $12 billion underdog, the Recording Industry Association of America, has finally announced a replacement for outgoing anti-piracy pit bull Hilary Rosen. Rosen abandoned the $1 million-a-year gig last month, citing the usual "I have young children and I want to devote more of my time to them" excuse. Almost universally reviled among file-traders for her aggressive campaigns against universities, businesses, internet service providers, parents and now file-swappers themselves, Rosen came in somewhere between a neo-Nazi group and Michael Bolton in an online poll on modern-day supervillains, according to a report in Wired. Predictably, laptop pundits began crowing stuff like "Ding dong! The wicked witch is dead!" on sites like Slashdot and MP3isnotacrime.org.

However, file-sharing watchdog Zeropaid.com reports that Rosen is simply swapping one high-paying, high-visibility career for another: starting this month, Rosen will appear thrice weekly as a commentator for CNBC. Though, to be fair, Rosen's income will be taking quite a hit-- I mean, for one thing, now she actually has to buy CD's!

Filling Rosen's million-dollar Buster Browns is Mitch Bainwol, a well-connected Republican lobbyist who has served as chief of staff for Senate Majority Leader Tom Frist, the Republican National Committee, and Republican senator Connie Mack. Damn, that's a lot of Republicans! And apparently, that's exactly the way the RIAA wanted it, having made no bones about wanting to recruit an insider with close ties to the current power base in Washington. As Rosen was a brash, loud Democrat, it's speculated that Bainwol will keep a lower profile-- preferring to do his dirty work in closed-door pow-wows with lawmakers rather than in the media.

In the meantime, file-sharing advocates Slyck.com are compiling a list of MP3 files that seem to appear in an awful lot of recent RIAA subpoenas. "It seems the RIAA's search is not random, as certain songs and artists are used as triggers," writes Slyck's Thomas Mennecke. Among the findings: Busta Rhymes, Avril Lavigne, and Ludacris appear in as many as 30 percent of the complaints, with Michael Jackson, Nas, Keith Sweat, and Musiq close behind. Slyck maintains a downloadable spreadsheet with patterns found in approximately 50 subpoenas reviewed thus far (link below). So, for now, it appears that genius mash-up of "Jenny from the Block" and "867-5309 (Jenny)" is still under the radar. Shhhhhh!

.: Slyck.com: The RIAA Hit List - A Pattern Emerges?