Lily Allen Calls for Tougher Stance on Music Piracy

Singer Lily Allen has hit out at what she calls "the dangerous effect" internet piracy is having on the music industry -- and criticised the stand taken by the high-profile Featured Artists Coalition [FAC].

The singer said on her MySpace site that fellow musicians should join her in a stand against pirates. Her stance puts her in the opposite corner to the FAC -- which features figures such as Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, Pink Floyd's Nick Mason, Billy Bragg and Blur's Dave Rowntree and calls for the government to curb draconian measures against uploaders.

"I think music piracy is having a dangerous effect on British music, but some really rich and successful artists like Nick Mason from Pink Floyd and Ed O'Brien from Radiohead don't seem to think so," she wrote. "The Featured Artists Coalition [FAC] also says file sharing's fine because it 'means a new generation of fans for us'. This is great if you're a big artist at the back end of your career with loads of albums to flog to a new audience, but emerging artists don't have this luxury."

She added: "Basically the FAC is saying 'we're alright, we've made it, so file sharing's fine', which is just so unfair to new acts trying to make it in the industry."

In her blog she finished saying "I'm going to be writing [to] British artists, saying just this: File sharing's not okay 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."