Copyright Law

Lily Allen Deletes Anti-P2P Blog, Quits Music for Acting

By soulxtc

Says the “abuse was getting too much,” now plans to focus on her appearance in a London theater production.

Last week UK pop singer Lily Allen caused a Metallica-esque uproar amongst music fans after lashing out at what she calls ?rich and successful? music artists from the Featured Artists Coalition for criticizing efforts by the UK govt for a ?three-strikes? crackdown on illegal file-sharing.

She unfortunately misinterpreted them to be pro-file-sharing rather than merely anti-disconnection. They believe that “wide-scale invasion of personal privacy” is both “disproportionate and unenforceable” to the threat posed by what is ostensibly a minority of Internet users.

They also see P2P as an “important form of promotion” for emerging artists while she considers it a “disaster.”

Allen went so far as to create a blog to invite other artists who agreed with her to post letters of support, but it was quickly inundated with vitriolic replies to those posts and so Allen decided to pull the plug.

“And I’ve shut down the blog, the abuse was getting too much. ,” she twittered.

Nevermind the fact that Allen is apparently clueless about copyright laws herself, and arguably could’ve lost her Internet connection as well under a “three-strikes” regime.

It all may be moot at this point however, for just before deleting her blog she wrote of plans to quit the music business.

?Please bear in mind this doesn?t have anything to do with me or my wealth,? she wrote on her now defunct blog. ?Just so you know, I have not renegotiated my record contract and have no plans to make another record. I do however remain a fan of new music, so this is not some selfish crusade.”

“The days of me making money from recording music has been and gone as far as I?m concerned, so i don?t stand to profit from legislation. Except future purchases of previously recorded material.?

It appears acting will be her new career. Lucky for her the demand for bootleg theater performances is next to none.

I only wonder if the damage to her reputation isn’t permanent. We all know how Metallica, 10 years after suing Napster and calling file-sharers thieves from behind the confines of million dollar homes, is still widely despised amongst music fans and perceived to be the poster child for greedy artists.

Only time will tell I suppose.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeropaid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on September 25, 2009 (boomark / email).