Lily Allen says goodbye

One of the few things that Lily Allen got right about her Not Alright campaign against fielsharing is that she was talking about something in which she had a direct interest.

So it was surprising that she went out of her way to deny having a financial interest in the issue:

“Just so you know, I have not renegotiated my record contract and have no plans to make another record (applause).”

It's alright that you have a financial interest in it, Lily - that's not a problem. And if it was, not making another record wouldn't absolve you from the perceived conflict of interests, as you've still got tracks which will be selling for a couple of years yet.

Interestingly, her "spokesperson" has rushed forward to try and explain to Popjustice that "no plans to make another record" doesn't actually mean she doesn't plan to make another record:

Anyway, deeply unfashionable as it is in an era of just copying, pasting, publishing, retweeting and waiting for the comments to roll in, we took the 7.8 seconds' worth of effort required to send a querying email to Lily's spokesman, who sent this back:

"She is not quitting pop music and is still promoting her current album, which is why she said she is not thinking ahead to another record."

I guess, like Allen's copying of an article without link or attribution, it should have somehow been perfectly obvious that what she said didn't actually mean what she meant to say.

Let's take Lily's 'questions answered' post at face value, though:

I think there is discussion going on, on this blog and wider. One of the things i'm trying to do is to get out what file-sharing does to new artists ,not answer every question about what might become law.

But isn't the blog calling for something to be done? It certainly looks like it. Surprising that it's turned out to be purely informational. Can't seem to find any figures to do all this explaining, though.

Loads of comments are angry about cutting people’s internet off permanently, but from what I’ve seen, no-one’s saying that. The governments proposal is for warning letters, then if they’re ignored, for “temporary account suspension”.

Oh, so you only lose access to communications, news, job applications, your business (if you have one), your bank account and online shopping for a "temporary" period. On the say-so of a private company, without any due process of law. That's alright then.

And newsflash people, the ISPs do this all the time already if they fail to pay their bills or break their licenses.

That's not the same thing, though, is it, Lily?

Also the government legislation is targeting uploaders – people that make music available illegally – not downloaders.

No, I don't think it is - I don't think there's any such distinction in the legislation. And do you know how filesharing even works? That the default is a two-way service? That many of the people who have been dragged to the courts didn't see themselves as uploaders but as downloaders? And if Mr Smith is unable to log-in to his business email because his son has been accused of file-sharing, does it really matter if the son was uploading or downloading?

Loads of comments are from people that are convinced music should be free. It’s not free to make, so it can’t be free, can it?

There's not actually any logic to that - there are lots of things that cost money to create which don't cost money at point of delivery. They just use different business models - libraries, the motorways, NHS, ITV programmes, Capital Radio.

If you’re downloading all your music for free, some real music fan somewhere is paying for your music.

Does anyone really download all their music for free? And does this follow? And does it matter? If I listen to all my music on Capital Radio, some "real" music fan is paying for the music - does that make me some sort of thief? Should I have my radio taken away?

Unfortunately there aren’t enough people paying, which is threatening new music.

Really? Earlier this week, Universal Music still made a USD186million profit in the last six months, so there's not exactly a shortage of cash in the labels.

You don’t even need to be good at maths to figure that one.

You don't have to be good at maths because you're just making statements rather than offering figures to support your argument, Lily.

The music industry’s not divided ,look at the letter from The Futureheads – members of the FAC , on here.

Different people are saying different things, and the FAC - unlike UK Music - doesn't claim to be speaking with a single voice for all the music industry.

We don’t agree on everything – SO! – we’re all creative people and are never going to agree on everything. We do all agree file-sharing’s not alright though.

Really? All of the music industry? Still, it's nice to see that Lily has abandoned her previous claim that the FAC did support filesharing.