Singer and self-styled campaigner against online music piracy Lily Allen has found herself in a bit of bother this week after it was discovered that she has been cheekily copying-and-pasting a blog on the issue and passing it off as her own.
Allen has started a blog explaining why she feels online peer-to-peer music sharing is damaging the industry, finding support from other 'artists' as diverse as Gary Barlow and Dappy from N-Dubz.
Lily's blog carries this criticism of American rapper 50 Cent, who recently suggested file-sharing was now part-and-parcel of marketing music online.
Hilariously, Torrentfreak noted that, "Long John Allen lifted the entire post from another site – [Techdirt.com] effectively pirating the work of the one and only Mike Masnick."
When informed of the news of Allen's copy-theft, Mike Masnick noted that he thought it was "wonderful that Lily 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….Apparently, what she says and how she acts are somewhat different. Still, Lily, glad we could help you make a point… even if it wasn't the one you thought you were making," he added.
Get your FACs right, Allen!
Elsewhere, the Featured Artists Coalition responded to Lily Allen to stress that they were not PRO illegal downloads, merely against any government plans to cut people's internet connections.
"Statements made in opposition to this idea [that connections should be severed] by members of the Featured Artists Coalition have been taken to imply that we condone illicit file-sharing," the statement read. "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."
Via Torrentfreak
