War & Peace Quote by Don Rose

"The industry's at war" is the kind of phrase a radio host uses when polite euphemisms have stopped matching reality. Don Rose frames media business conflict as open combat, not a market correction, because he wants you to hear the aggression behind the spreadsheets. The immediate target is the industry's favorite defense: that its decisions are merely rational responses to technology, piracy, or changing consumer habits. Rose dismisses that as theater. Even when the numbers look self-defeating, the behavior makes sense if the real goal is control.

The quote works because it flips the usual narrative. Instead of "protecting artists" or "saving jobs", Rose points to an older, less Instagrammable engine: ownership. "A foundation of ownership and exploitation of intellectual property rights" is blunt to the point of discomfort, and that's the point. He isn't arguing that IP is illegitimate; he's arguing that the system is structurally incentivized to prioritize who owns the faucet over how much water flows. If the industry can lock down distribution, dictate formats, or police access, it can tolerate short-term losses because the prize is precedent and leverage.

Contextually, it reads like a veteran broadcaster reacting to the late-20th-century acceleration of media consolidation and the early internet's threat to gatekeepers. Rose's subtext is a warning: the "war" isn't against piracy alone. It's against audiences learning they don't need permission to find, copy, remix, or share culture. Control, once lost, is hard to reassert; that's why the fight turns scorched-earth, even when it looks irrational.