Sometimes celebrities do our job for us.
Just as we were about to pen a missive about Lily Allen's anti-filesharing blog, in which we'd suggest that anything that would prevent James Blunt from having a career can't be all bad, Lily shot her own foot for us.
It turns out that she'd plagiarised a post - a post explaining why, er, copyright infringement is bad.
Then, we discovered that she'd scanned in pages from newspapers - pages that explained why, er, copyright infringement is bad.
It's all very amusing. Allen appears to have created Lily Allen's Animal Farm, hastily rewriting the rules from "copyright good! Infringement bad!" to "Copyright good! Passing off other people's work without attribution or payment better!"
Then again, you're a bit daft if you're expecting sense from an industry whose intellectual qualities peaked with Sir Mix-A-Lot's cry of "I like big butts and I cannot lie!"
Last chance, Lily
However, Allen has become the figurehead of a campaign in favour of disconnecting downloaders - and we've already identified that she's had two of her three strikes. One more offence and she'd be off the net.
Except, she wouldn't, because the people behind the proposed three-strikes legislation don't care if people rip off blogs, forum posts, tweets, books, magazine articles or anything else along those lines.
That isn't a crime. It's a misunderstanding, or possibly an art statement. Quote Lily Allen's lyrics on your blog or stick up a clip, on the other hand, and you're a criminal. Off with your router!
It's clear that Allen doesn't see that she's done anything wrong - her apology isn't exactly graceful or particularly apologetic - and that's the point.
Many, many illegal downloaders don't see that they've done anything wrong, either - and by doing the very thing she's campaigning against, anything Allen has to say on the subject of respecting copyright is going to be ignored.
That's a shame, because there's a debate to be had on the issue of copyright and fair use. But there's another debate to be had, too, which is whether the existing system is even worth protecting in the first place.
As Matt Bellamy of Muse, again writing on Allen's blog, puts it: "If revenue could be generated (however small) for all content creators, it would be extremely liberating as many people would find not only mass recognition, but also a potential income without needing to sign their rights away to record companies, publishers and Hollywood production companies first."
Meanwhile Tom Chaplin of Keane has another suggestion. "Make music much less expensive," he says. "It's way too overpriced".
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Your comments (7) Click to add a new comment
psyfur
September 24th 2009
7. All I will say again on this Lily Allen subject is half wit pop brat, nuff said!
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starfleet
September 24th 2009
6. Let's start up a petition for the Prime Minister to kick her of the net: petitions.number10.gov.uk xD. Her music isn't even worth buying tbh and you can legally stream and 'share' it using services like WE7 and Spotify.
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peteprodge
September 23rd 2009
5. Ripping off text is one thing...
But now Lily Allen has been caught with illegal MP3s of copyrighted music on her own site!
This is the story I submitted to TechDirt...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090923/1409046297.shtml
It's doing the rounds on Twitter!
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grannelle
September 23rd 2009
4. Hello fellow travelers of the information superhighway. I, a lowly person of little merit and even less consequence, would like to weigh in on your conversations and my own thoughts about them as relates to Ms. Allen.
First, allow me to say that the base controversy, copyright vs. copyleft, is merely one more issue of the earth-shaking changes being brought to us by what no doubt has to be the latest evolutionary step for modern mankind that began with the developments of the opposable thumb and the ability to speak; the Internet and the World Wide Web (both of which, I apologetically point out, should properly be capitalized). In addition to this conundrum (good points are being made both pro and con), there are the concerns of the mom-n-pop operations, once being ushered out the door of commerce by the giants of industry, now being enabled by the egress to the world market, the empowerment of the consumer who can complain about bad CRM and actually be heard and paid attention to instead of being ignored, and the myriad other pluses, as well as the minuses, e.g. hundreds of thousands being displaced with the loss of positions as commercial enterprise converges to an e-based system.
While the raging furor over what’s “right” and what’s “wrong” ferments, one fact is undeniable. The practice of infringing on the intellectual property of others is illegal, and ergo, I would presume, unethical, though that most certainly is open to debate. Therefore, Ms. Allen’s having (acquired, gathered, seized, stolen, pilfered, borrowed, make your own choice) the cerebral chattels of another, while for the very highest magnitude of principled and right-minded motive, was a violation of her own stated conviction, and does in fact negate any worthiness of belief she may have held. Such truths notwithstanding, the bottom line is that the theory that there is no such thing as bad ink is being upheld here. One has only to witness the sheer number of responses, both here and elsewhere, being made to and about her statements. To be quite honest, a few days ago I didn’t even know of the existence of Ms. Allen or her status as a recording artist, and now, here I am spending what is to me valuable time writing about her because I’ve been so moved by the causatums of her actions!
And so, in the end, I must say, well played, Ms. Allen, well played.
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phibo78
September 23rd 2009
3. Lily Allen had no problems with her music being shared when she started her career when she was just posting her music on her myspace page.
Now she's earning a salary from her music, she's complaning about people sharing her music.
Can't have it both ways lily.......(either way though I still would!)
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holness
September 23rd 2009
2. If fairness is to be across the board then I would like to return my film or album to the store for a full refund if it is not 'the funniest comedy of the year' or 'best action picture of the decade' ad nauseam.
But wait, I cannot so my purchase is one way based on the PR machines continual manure churning.
(yes I could imdb it but...)
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