UK singer Lily Allen, 24, has suddenly had a change of heart and now thinks music piracy is not so bad, at least as far as her own music is concerned.
The ‘Not Fair” singer recently launched a scathing attack on illegal file-sharing on her MySpace blog and attacked indie group Radiohead for giving away their latest album online.
But she claims she doesn’t care if people copy her albums and sell them on for a profit.
“If someone comes up with a burnt copy of my CD and offers it to you for $7, I haven’t a problem with that as long as the person buying it places some kind do of value on my music,” Lily told UK radio station Key 103 in an
In Lily’s original blog post she said downloading was starving up-and-coming artists of money they need to keep producing music, and attacked the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC).
The group endorses giving away music. Its members include Travis singer Fran Healy, Blur drummer Dave Rowntree and Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien.
“I’m going to be writing to British artists, saying just this: File sharing’s not OK for British music. We need to find new ways to help consumers access and buy music legally, but saying file sharing’s fine is not helping anyone – and definitely not helping British music,” she wrote on her blog.
The FAC recently called for the British government to abandon proposals to cut off the internet connections of people who illegally download music.
The music industry has spent tens of millions of dollars to stop illegal sharing of music over the Internet, including suing individual music fans, who are repeat offenders.