Lily Allen: P2P a “Disaster” for New Artists
So, despite the fact that she’s mercifully “quitting music,” Lily Allen’s come out against filesharing and lobbed some proverbial stones at Radiohead for having the gall to suggest that the British government’s plan to cut off people’s internet if they’re caught filesharing three times might be both heavy handed and counter-productive.
There are several ironies to point out here.
The first, is that in her surprisingly eloquent tirade, she pirated the work of a writer from TechDirt.com almost wholesale. Later on, she misunderstood what he was getting at when he called her out, and said she forgot to credit him… which seems to imply that it’s actually okay to post copyrighted music, as long as you credit the artist. You would think that someone who was coddled at one of the UK’s most prestigious private schools could draw a line between piracy and plagiarism… but I bet a lot of record execs have similar upbringings and the same problem.
Second, when EMI, who are, of course, backing Allen’s crusade with all their might, and Allen were busy launching Lily’s career mostly via an internet based, viral marketing campaign that painted her as an unknown, independent artist, they offered a pair of free mixtapes right on her official website, both of which contain unauthorized, copyrighted material from non-EMI artists. They’re still up. They’re still free. They still break the law.
Third, she took a shot at 50 Cent for suggesting that mixtapes, and by extension, piracy, were part of the modern promotional game.
Hopefully, she decides to quit stating her ignorant, hypocritical opinion next.
