September 25th, 2009 
Val Provided by Pitchfork
Earlier this week, British pop star Lily Allen launched something of a crusade against the Featured Artists Coalition, the British musicians’ advocacy group that includes members of bands like Radiohead and Blur. The FAC’s crime, in Allen’s eyes, was opposing a British governmental proposal that would cut the internet connections of people who had engaged in piracy. Allen wrote a thoughtful MySpace blog post about how file-sharing was endangering British music, and she also started a blog, It’s Not Alright, which collected other artists’ thoughts about fire-sharing.
Well, Allen has now taken the blog down, claiming on her Twitter that “the abuse was getting too much.” She added, “i’m proud of the fact that that i’ve been involved with this debate but i’m passing the baton on to other artists.”
Before she took the blog down, though, Allen wrote a post that could be considered a statement of impending retirement, depending on how you read it. Allen wrote: “Just so you know, I have not renegotiated my record contract and have no plans to make another record (applause). 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(at this point) stand to profit from legislation. except future purchases of previously recorded material(which wont be much).”
Allen’s publicist told The Guardian that “Lily is not quitting pop music and is still promoting and touring her current album.” And as the newspaper points out, it’s not the first time Allen has made noise about quitting.
Whatever Allen’s future plans, though, she has certainly kicked up a storm in the file-sharing debate. Earlier today, Allen wrote on her Twitter that “there is a meeting today in london where artists are meeting to discuss Piracy. my job done.” Allen also noted that she wouldn’t attend the meeting because “it’s going to be a press frenzy and i don’t want to detract from the issues”. Indeed, Billboard reports that the FAC has called a closed meeting in London “to hammer out a unified position on this issue.”
NME reports that Radiohead guitarist and prominent FAC member Ed O’Brien has responded to Allen, telling the BBC, “What’s great at the moment is that artists, people like Lily Allen, are saying, ‘You know what, there are consequences to file-sharing,’ and that’s the first step in engaging the file-sharers…At the moment, the industry is saying you get them to change their behaviour by threatening them. We don’t think this is realistic. Hopefully we can educate them and say, ‘Listen, if you want a great vibrant music scene and your favourite bands to be able to carry on doing it, you have a responsibility to pay for some of the work that they’ve produced.'”
He said that Allen’s point about big, established artists not feeling the brunt of the damage from piracy is right on: “I completely agree with Lily Allen. We’re [Radiohead] certainly not going to suffer. A lot of people have downloaded our music for free, but ultimately we don’t suffer as much as a small band.”
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