6 ms·

The last word on Lily Allen and her anti-filesharing campaign

68 points by andyking 17y ago

russell 17y ago
Wonderful, wonderful. Way beyond your typical anti-IP rant.
christopherolah 17y ago
I'm usually not a music person. But this is brilliant. The amount of effort that must have gone into making something like this... Timing the typing and speaking to the rhythm. It helps that I disagree with the modern state of IP. I hope it goes viral. Dear Lily, why you being so silly...
- skolor 17y ago
  I particularly liked his last line: But when you're between the devil and the deep blue sea, you need to stop worrying about pirates, and adjust your sails. It seems particularly apt in the current state of the internet.
  - KC8ZKF 17y ago
    It breaks the analogy, though. When you have the devil to pay, adjusting your sails won't do any good. Pirates or not.
    - skolor 17y ago
      I believe that was a pun. "Adjust your sales".
      - KC8ZKF 17y ago
        I understand the pun. It still breaks the analogy.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      FYI, the phrase originates from the difficulty and danger of carrying out certain adjustments on a sailing ship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Devil_and_the_Deep_Blue_Sea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Devil_and_the_Deep_... - it's not about having the Devil to pay, but what you risk if you don't get the job of adjusting your 'sails' done.
      - KC8ZKF 17y ago
        Those certain adjustments are "paying the devil." The "devil" being the gap between the main deck and the hull; "paying" being filling with pitch. When you are doing that, you are hanging over the side, "between the devil and the deep blue sea." When you are between the devil and the deep blue sea, paying the devil, the sails are down. Adjusting sails has nothing to do with it.
        anigbrowl 17y ago
        ah, I see. +1!
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Well there's software that can help with that ;) But yes, I love the execution, a great combination of serious argument and witty presentation. Another few years of Autotune development and we can have plugins that render HN as opera.
skolor 17y ago
I'm glad to see that the artist who performed this isn't just talking about it, he's actually doing what he says. I poked around a little ways, got to his MySpace page, and found this: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=34458280&blogId=460628318 http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&..., where he not only provides the link to buy his newest album, but he also provides a link to download it too (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HMMBYOTZ http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HMMBYOTZ). As a side note, I don't understand the recent trend for bands to only have a MySpace page, and not have their own site. It just seems a little tacky to me.
- borism 17y ago
  I think the recent trend you're referring to is not-so-recent for more than a year now and is already on the decline. But reasons are quite obvious.
  - skolor 17y ago
    I was referring to the past two years or so that I've been seeing it as "recent". It may not be internet recent, but I still consider that fairly recent in terms of music. As far as it goes, I dislike MySpace because it is an excused for a half-assed web designer to slap something together and call it a "Band Site". I've seen a few MySpace pages that blew me away, and that really showed how good of a platform it could be. Those were, by far, the exception though, so every time I see a MySpace band page, I think "Wow, these guys are only willing to put this much work into their online presence?" Sure, my idea of a "good" site is rather skewed, but a lot of band sites are downright dreadful, and there really isn't an excuse for it.
- callmeed 17y ago
  Lily Allen's career took off because of her myspace page as she uploaded songs/videos. In her case, she never needed a website.
  - kierank 17y ago
    Being Keith Allen's daughter helped too.
gizmo 17y ago
Terrific (and probably effective) song. Half way through Dan Bull implied that he took the background score from one of Lily's songs. He did, but he never properly gave credit at the end of the clip. And that's just not cool. Even if you think that music should be in the public domain (like I believe all university papers should be) you still must never use something without giving credit where it's due. It only took 20 seconds to Google, but still. The original song is "22" from the album "It's Not Me, It's You".
- axod 17y ago
  It's like 4 chords and a drum beat. Do you really need to give credit for that? (I know legally the answer is likely yes, but I don't think it should be). Imagine if we had to give credit for each 4 lines of code that had already been used by someone else :/ Or a painter who had to give credit for a certain way of drawing a beard.
  - brandnewlow 17y ago
    If he used the actual sample from the song then it's more likely: - 4 chords - a drum beat - a $5,000 microphone to record the guitar so it sounds like that - a $3000 keyboard to make the piano sound like that - $10,000 in drum gear to get them to sound that way etc. etc. etc. I symapathize with people who want credit for samples. A lot of work and money goes into making pop music pop the way it does.
    - axod 17y ago
      That's a big 'if'. He said 'cover version' which I take to mean he played and recorded it himself.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      I think it was MIDIfied, but more importantly he's also having a dig at the fact that 'her' article on copyright was copypasta from a Techdirt article without attribution to the original author, Michael Masnick. He then goes on to complain that labels assert cover versions (like this very track) infringe, when their poster girl of the moment is plagiarizing writers herself. Not only do I like his argument on copyright, I think it's also best deconstruction of the pop music business I've heard in a long, long time.
petercooper 17y ago
It's not fair and I think she's really mean.
- NathanKP 17y ago
  I certainly understand your pun on Lilly Allen's song yet I must say that we can't really complain about artists complaining about pirating. Sure Lilly Allen might have gone a little overboard, but its a valid complaint. Artists need to be paid just like everyone else. The fact that they get paid so much more money than most of the rest of us do is irrelevant. It doesn't mean we are entitled to steal from them. If you are pirating music then you are cheating the artist. And if you enjoy the song why steal it? I mean you can probably buy it off iTunes for 99 cents to a $1.29 That said, I must admit that I enjoyed Dan Bull's song. It is funny, but I don't think that pirating is funny. We can't force everybody to go open source, and we certainly shouldn't complain when other people complain about getting their work stolen and distributed without getting any benefit from it.
  - petercooper 17y ago
    If you are pirating music then you are cheating the artist. And if you enjoy the song why steal it? I mean you can probably buy it off iTunes for 99 cents to a $1.29 It depends whether you think the ends justify the means. Since the iTunes Music Store started up, I've run a clean ship, but back in the Napster days I got into some bands I would never have got into if I had to buy their CD. I've then gone to gigs of some of these bands, recommended their music to others, and, ultimately, they got more money from my actions than if I had to pay to buy their album (which I wouldn't have bothered with). Markets are complicated. It can't be proven that Lily Allen would have any more money now if piracy were non-existent (or vice versa, admittedly). I think the power effect of social markets comes into play - it makes more sense for her to have significantly more fans making her less cash per capita than to have a smaller fanbase that doesn't engage in piracy. Either way, I know I've gotten into bands (and then given those bands money in some way directly or indirectly) via unconventional means before. If those avenues hadn't been available (and now I just use Spotify - no need for piracy!) I'd probably have stuck to the 10 or so bands I like and given more money to them instead.
rsheridan6 17y ago
Not that I really care, but I'm sick of some of the bogus pro-filesharing arguments. Downloads don't equate to lost revenue? Maybe not exactly, in that not all downloads represent a lost sale, but my monthly CD budget went from about $50 to $0 after Napster came out. I know I'm not the only one.
- axod 17y ago
  I don't think a lot of it is a matter of being pro-filesharing or anti. It's about recognizing the changing market. Culture has shifted. Once people marveled at how they could listen to a recording of a singer so it was just like having them perform in their own house! They placed a large value on that. They were happy to pay to buy the latest album. As things have moved on, people just place far less value on being able to have the ability to listen to particular songs on demand, and expect it to either be free, or nearly free. After all, selling musical recordings is a pretty recent fad. It's not like some age old industry is being killed here. In some ways it's similar to the ringtone fad. In the late 90s ringtones were massive and people were willing to pay a few pounds for each ringtone. Few years later and people aren't prepared to do that anymore. It seems like the new model will just be 'Give away recorded music to promote live shows'.
  - lucumo 17y ago
    > As things have moved on, people just place far less value on being able to have the ability to listen to particular songs on demand, and expect it to either be free, or nearly free. That's fine. I don't think anyone wants to deny consumers their right to decide the amount they want to buy for. What people disagree on is whether you should then get it, if you're not willing to pay the price for it. > After all, selling musical recordings is a pretty recent fad. It's not like some age old industry is being killed here. That isn't relevant, of course. Age doesn't say anything about the quality of an industry. Some very old industries have died (deservedly), while very young industries are thriving deservedly. > In some ways it's similar to the ringtone fad. In the late 90s ringtones were massive and people were willing to pay a few pounds for each ringtone. Few years later and people aren't prepared to do that anymore. Wow, the UK must be way ahead of the rest of Europe! :-) It's still a big fad here. Not a few pounds, but about a euro or so...
aw3c2 17y ago
This is blogspam, here is the actual link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY
- andyking 17y ago
  I originally found the video via this blog, which I'm subscribed to in Google Reader. I'd much rather reward the bloke who made me aware of it with a few hits than link to some anonymous Youtube page stuffed with inane comments. Both pages contain the video, and it doesn't affect the view numbers on that, so what's the actual problem here? It's not my blog and I'm pretty sure the bloke running it isn't raking in the cash from piles of adverts, so it's hardly spam...
  - aw3c2 17y ago
    In contrast to the content-void blog post, the description on Youtube contains a link to the mp3, the authors website and the lyrics. Don't submit where you found something, submit what you found. If you consider your link important, just post it as a comment.
tdavis 17y ago
If file sharing does directly contribute to lost revenue then that revenue wasn't ever (or is no longer) deserved. I pay for music, but only when I think it's really warranted. Artists have to prove to me that what I'm buying is worth paying for -- before file sharing there was no way to do that. Sure, artists release singles, but you don't buy CDs by the song. There are a select few people who have proven to me time and again that they produce high-quality music worthy of my money (and, in my opinion, worth far more than I pay). Notably, I will buy anything done by the likes of Steven Wilson, Trent Reznor, Jenny Lewis, and MJK. It doesn't matter if it's a new group or a solo album. It doesn't matter if I haven't heard a single song. Some bands like Dredg are guaranteed buys -- again, even if I haven't heard a single song. I know the artist doesn't get very much of album sales, especially digital ones, so I will buy directly from them (FLAC helps, too) where possible. Music -- popular music, anyway -- has been commoditized and watered down to the point that it really isn't worth buying. I "pirated" the latest Pearl Jam album because I was reasonably sure it was going to be a disaster (apart from the one catchy single) and I was vindicated in that notion. If I had bought it, where would I return my MP3s to? I have never believed music isn't worth paying for. I don't even know how I would live without the ability to listen to music nearly constantly. I am very cognizant when I'm without it for even a day. This viewpoint wasn't cultivated by manufactured, commodity sound. It was born from the work of amazingly talented individuals who have the ability to take words and sound and shape them into something that has more meaning than either could achieve alone. How isn't that worth paying for... when it transcends?
- cubedice 17y ago
  See, but this is very much the problem. Records provided an unequal distribution of wealth amongst performing artists before the internet. Why pay to listen to an up-and-coming classical artist when an exquisite recording of Chopin's work all ready exists? Now, the internet has magnified this even further. An incredibly narrow band of artists are currently being compensated in any way (live performance, merch, cds), and this trend appears to be continuing. In general, the life of a performing musician pretty much sucks. Take a blog post by David Byrne I found on here awhile ago http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2009/08/080809-edinburgh-so-how-does-it-work-on-the-bus.html http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2009/08/080809-edinburgh-so-ho... . He's working pretty damn hard, and he's famous! I'm not saying that file sharing is inherently wrong, I'm just saying deep down, we know there's a system that will rise out of this that will undoubtedly be regulated. I'd rather be having that discussion, than saying 'oh, I wouldn't have paid for that'

68 points by andyking 17y ago

Wonderful, wonderful. Way beyond your typical anti-IP rant.

I'm usually not a music person. But this is brilliant. The amount of effort that must have gone into making something like this... Timing the typing and speaking to the rhythm. It helps that I disagree with the modern state of IP. I hope it goes viral. Dear Lily, why you being so silly...

skolor 17y ago
I particularly liked his last line: But when you're between the devil and the deep blue sea, you need to stop worrying about pirates, and adjust your sails. It seems particularly apt in the current state of the internet.
- KC8ZKF 17y ago
  It breaks the analogy, though. When you have the devil to pay, adjusting your sails won't do any good. Pirates or not.
  - skolor 17y ago
    I believe that was a pun. "Adjust your sales".
    - KC8ZKF 17y ago
      I understand the pun. It still breaks the analogy.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    FYI, the phrase originates from the difficulty and danger of carrying out certain adjustments on a sailing ship: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Devil_and_the_Deep_Blue_Sea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_the_Devil_and_the_Deep_... - it's not about having the Devil to pay, but what you risk if you don't get the job of adjusting your 'sails' done.
    - KC8ZKF 17y ago
      Those certain adjustments are "paying the devil." The "devil" being the gap between the main deck and the hull; "paying" being filling with pitch. When you are doing that, you are hanging over the side, "between the devil and the deep blue sea." When you are between the devil and the deep blue sea, paying the devil, the sails are down. Adjusting sails has nothing to do with it.
      - anigbrowl 17y ago
        ah, I see. +1!
anigbrowl 17y ago
Well there's software that can help with that ;) But yes, I love the execution, a great combination of serious argument and witty presentation. Another few years of Autotune development and we can have plugins that render HN as opera.

skolor 17y ago

I'm glad to see that the artist who performed this isn't just talking about it, he's actually doing what he says. I poked around a little ways, got to his MySpace page, and found this: http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=34458280&blogId=460628318 http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&..., where he not only provides the link to buy his newest album, but he also provides a link to download it too (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HMMBYOTZ http://www.megaupload.com/?d=HMMBYOTZ). As a side note, I don't understand the recent trend for bands to only have a MySpace page, and not have their own site. It just seems a little tacky to me.

borism 17y ago
I think the recent trend you're referring to is not-so-recent for more than a year now and is already on the decline. But reasons are quite obvious.
- skolor 17y ago
  I was referring to the past two years or so that I've been seeing it as "recent". It may not be internet recent, but I still consider that fairly recent in terms of music. As far as it goes, I dislike MySpace because it is an excused for a half-assed web designer to slap something together and call it a "Band Site". I've seen a few MySpace pages that blew me away, and that really showed how good of a platform it could be. Those were, by far, the exception though, so every time I see a MySpace band page, I think "Wow, these guys are only willing to put this much work into their online presence?" Sure, my idea of a "good" site is rather skewed, but a lot of band sites are downright dreadful, and there really isn't an excuse for it.
callmeed 17y ago
Lily Allen's career took off because of her myspace page as she uploaded songs/videos. In her case, she never needed a website.
- kierank 17y ago
  Being Keith Allen's daughter helped too.

gizmo 17y ago

Terrific (and probably effective) song. Half way through Dan Bull implied that he took the background score from one of Lily's songs. He did, but he never properly gave credit at the end of the clip. And that's just not cool. Even if you think that music should be in the public domain (like I believe all university papers should be) you still must never use something without giving credit where it's due. It only took 20 seconds to Google, but still. The original song is "22" from the album "It's Not Me, It's You".

axod 17y ago
It's like 4 chords and a drum beat. Do you really need to give credit for that? (I know legally the answer is likely yes, but I don't think it should be). Imagine if we had to give credit for each 4 lines of code that had already been used by someone else :/ Or a painter who had to give credit for a certain way of drawing a beard.
- brandnewlow 17y ago
  If he used the actual sample from the song then it's more likely: - 4 chords - a drum beat - a $5,000 microphone to record the guitar so it sounds like that - a $3000 keyboard to make the piano sound like that - $10,000 in drum gear to get them to sound that way etc. etc. etc. I symapathize with people who want credit for samples. A lot of work and money goes into making pop music pop the way it does.
  - axod 17y ago
    That's a big 'if'. He said 'cover version' which I take to mean he played and recorded it himself.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    I think it was MIDIfied, but more importantly he's also having a dig at the fact that 'her' article on copyright was copypasta from a Techdirt article without attribution to the original author, Michael Masnick. He then goes on to complain that labels assert cover versions (like this very track) infringe, when their poster girl of the moment is plagiarizing writers herself. Not only do I like his argument on copyright, I think it's also best deconstruction of the pop music business I've heard in a long, long time.

petercooper 17y ago

It's not fair and I think she's really mean.

NathanKP 17y ago
I certainly understand your pun on Lilly Allen's song yet I must say that we can't really complain about artists complaining about pirating. Sure Lilly Allen might have gone a little overboard, but its a valid complaint. Artists need to be paid just like everyone else. The fact that they get paid so much more money than most of the rest of us do is irrelevant. It doesn't mean we are entitled to steal from them. If you are pirating music then you are cheating the artist. And if you enjoy the song why steal it? I mean you can probably buy it off iTunes for 99 cents to a $1.29 That said, I must admit that I enjoyed Dan Bull's song. It is funny, but I don't think that pirating is funny. We can't force everybody to go open source, and we certainly shouldn't complain when other people complain about getting their work stolen and distributed without getting any benefit from it.
- petercooper 17y ago
  If you are pirating music then you are cheating the artist. And if you enjoy the song why steal it? I mean you can probably buy it off iTunes for 99 cents to a $1.29 It depends whether you think the ends justify the means. Since the iTunes Music Store started up, I've run a clean ship, but back in the Napster days I got into some bands I would never have got into if I had to buy their CD. I've then gone to gigs of some of these bands, recommended their music to others, and, ultimately, they got more money from my actions than if I had to pay to buy their album (which I wouldn't have bothered with). Markets are complicated. It can't be proven that Lily Allen would have any more money now if piracy were non-existent (or vice versa, admittedly). I think the power effect of social markets comes into play - it makes more sense for her to have significantly more fans making her less cash per capita than to have a smaller fanbase that doesn't engage in piracy. Either way, I know I've gotten into bands (and then given those bands money in some way directly or indirectly) via unconventional means before. If those avenues hadn't been available (and now I just use Spotify - no need for piracy!) I'd probably have stuck to the 10 or so bands I like and given more money to them instead.

rsheridan6 17y ago

Not that I really care, but I'm sick of some of the bogus pro-filesharing arguments. Downloads don't equate to lost revenue? Maybe not exactly, in that not all downloads represent a lost sale, but my monthly CD budget went from about $50 to $0 after Napster came out. I know I'm not the only one.

axod 17y ago
I don't think a lot of it is a matter of being pro-filesharing or anti. It's about recognizing the changing market. Culture has shifted. Once people marveled at how they could listen to a recording of a singer so it was just like having them perform in their own house! They placed a large value on that. They were happy to pay to buy the latest album. As things have moved on, people just place far less value on being able to have the ability to listen to particular songs on demand, and expect it to either be free, or nearly free. After all, selling musical recordings is a pretty recent fad. It's not like some age old industry is being killed here. In some ways it's similar to the ringtone fad. In the late 90s ringtones were massive and people were willing to pay a few pounds for each ringtone. Few years later and people aren't prepared to do that anymore. It seems like the new model will just be 'Give away recorded music to promote live shows'.
- lucumo 17y ago
  > As things have moved on, people just place far less value on being able to have the ability to listen to particular songs on demand, and expect it to either be free, or nearly free. That's fine. I don't think anyone wants to deny consumers their right to decide the amount they want to buy for. What people disagree on is whether you should then get it, if you're not willing to pay the price for it. > After all, selling musical recordings is a pretty recent fad. It's not like some age old industry is being killed here. That isn't relevant, of course. Age doesn't say anything about the quality of an industry. Some very old industries have died (deservedly), while very young industries are thriving deservedly. > In some ways it's similar to the ringtone fad. In the late 90s ringtones were massive and people were willing to pay a few pounds for each ringtone. Few years later and people aren't prepared to do that anymore. Wow, the UK must be way ahead of the rest of Europe! :-) It's still a big fad here. Not a few pounds, but about a euro or so...

aw3c2 17y ago

This is blogspam, here is the actual link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL9-esIM2CY

andyking 17y ago
I originally found the video via this blog, which I'm subscribed to in Google Reader. I'd much rather reward the bloke who made me aware of it with a few hits than link to some anonymous Youtube page stuffed with inane comments. Both pages contain the video, and it doesn't affect the view numbers on that, so what's the actual problem here? It's not my blog and I'm pretty sure the bloke running it isn't raking in the cash from piles of adverts, so it's hardly spam...
- aw3c2 17y ago
  In contrast to the content-void blog post, the description on Youtube contains a link to the mp3, the authors website and the lyrics. Don't submit where you found something, submit what you found. If you consider your link important, just post it as a comment.

tdavis 17y ago

If file sharing does directly contribute to lost revenue then that revenue wasn't ever (or is no longer) deserved. I pay for music, but only when I think it's really warranted. Artists have to prove to me that what I'm buying is worth paying for -- before file sharing there was no way to do that. Sure, artists release singles, but you don't buy CDs by the song. There are a select few people who have proven to me time and again that they produce high-quality music worthy of my money (and, in my opinion, worth far more than I pay). Notably, I will buy anything done by the likes of Steven Wilson, Trent Reznor, Jenny Lewis, and MJK. It doesn't matter if it's a new group or a solo album. It doesn't matter if I haven't heard a single song. Some bands like Dredg are guaranteed buys -- again, even if I haven't heard a single song. I know the artist doesn't get very much of album sales, especially digital ones, so I will buy directly from them (FLAC helps, too) where possible. Music -- popular music, anyway -- has been commoditized and watered down to the point that it really isn't worth buying. I "pirated" the latest Pearl Jam album because I was reasonably sure it was going to be a disaster (apart from the one catchy single) and I was vindicated in that notion. If I had bought it, where would I return my MP3s to? I have never believed music isn't worth paying for. I don't even know how I would live without the ability to listen to music nearly constantly. I am very cognizant when I'm without it for even a day. This viewpoint wasn't cultivated by manufactured, commodity sound. It was born from the work of amazingly talented individuals who have the ability to take words and sound and shape them into something that has more meaning than either could achieve alone. How isn't that worth paying for... when it transcends?

cubedice 17y ago
See, but this is very much the problem. Records provided an unequal distribution of wealth amongst performing artists before the internet. Why pay to listen to an up-and-coming classical artist when an exquisite recording of Chopin's work all ready exists? Now, the internet has magnified this even further. An incredibly narrow band of artists are currently being compensated in any way (live performance, merch, cds), and this trend appears to be continuing. In general, the life of a performing musician pretty much sucks. Take a blog post by David Byrne I found on here awhile ago http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2009/08/080809-edinburgh-so-how-does-it-work-on-the-bus.html http://journal.davidbyrne.com/2009/08/080809-edinburgh-so-ho... . He's working pretty damn hard, and he's famous! I'm not saying that file sharing is inherently wrong, I'm just saying deep down, we know there's a system that will rise out of this that will undoubtedly be regulated. I'd rather be having that discussion, than saying 'oh, I wouldn't have paid for that'