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FAC respond to Lily
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 22 September 2009
The Featured Artists’ Coalition has issued a statement in response to Lily Allen’s previously reported rantings in which she implied that the organisation supported file-sharing, while complaining that the Coalition, in opposing new government moves that aim to combat online piracy, was failing to support its younger members.
It was all well and good for more established FAC types like Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien and Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason, she wrote, because they’ve already made their money, so have less to lose when cheeky music fans nick their music off the internet rather than buying it from legit download stores or listening to it on licensed streaming services. For artists still relying on recording sales income or, more likely, relying on their recordings making money in order to convince their record label to continue investing in them, file-sharing is a bigger deal. The government, of course, is now considering forcing internet service providers to ultimately suspend the net access of persistent file-sharers.
But the FAC say that Lily, in her widely reported blog ramblings, completely misunderstood their stance on this issue. Which I’m pretty sure we here at CMU had already noted and clarified, but apparently some fools don’t read CMU, hence the need for the FAC statement. In it, the Coalition stress that they are very much opposed to file-sharing, but consider government moves to “criminalise” music fans to be somewhat counterproductive.
The FAC’s statement reads: “Statements made in opposition to this idea [the government’s proposals] by members of the Featured Artists Coalition have been taken to imply that we condone illicit file-sharing. This is not the case and never has been.We wish to make it clear to all parties that we believe the creative work of artists should be paid for by those who enjoy it and that whenever our music is used, royalties should be paid”.
It continues: “The focus of our objection is the proposed treatment of ordinary music fans who download a few tracks so as to check out our material before they buy. For those of us who don’t get played on the radio or mentioned in the music media – artists established and emerging – peer-to-peer recommendation is an important form of promotion”.
Knowing the power of the Allen, the FAC probably should have clarified their viewpoint sooner. Because nearly a week has passed since her original blog, Lily has had time to start a campaign. Buoyed by early support from Patrick Wolf and Muse’s Matt Bellamy (well, Bellamy wasn’t really supporting Lily’s viewpoint, but he did email her) she has been contacting various musicians in the last few days. Their responses and various bits of media coverage are collected at her new blog:
idontwanttochangetheworld.blogspot.com
Extra points must be awarded to Lily for using Billy Bragg lyrics in the URL there, he being another key member of the FAC, of course, and a vocal critic of the government’s current proposals. However, she does lose all of those extra points as one of her own posts on the new site has turned out to be, in part, plagiarised from an article on Techdirt.com.
The author of the original piece, Mike Masnick, told TorrentFreak: “I think it’s wonderful that Lilly Allen found so much value in our Techdirt post that she decided to copy – or should I say ‘pirate’? – the entire post. The fact that she is trying to claim that such copying is bad, while doing it herself suggests something of a double standard, unfortunately. Also, for someone so concerned about the impact of ‘piracy’ I’m quite surprised that she neither credited nor linked to our post. Apparently, what she says and how she acts are somewhat different. Still, Lilly, glad we could help you make a point… even if it wasn’t the one you thought you were making”.
Lily has since responded via her blog thus: “I THINK ITS QUITE OVIOUS THAT I WASNT TRYING TO PASS OF THOSE WORDS AS MY OWN, HERE IS A LINK TO THE WEBSIITE I ACQUIRED THE PIECE FROM”. Capital letters etc all Lily’s.
Still, in many ways it’s great that artists are getting so involved in the latest stage of the big P2P debate, though such vocal discussion isn’t going to help those trying to convince government there is widespread support in the music community for a three-strikes style system for combating file-sharing in the UK.
