TIM IN LILY ALLEN'S BLOG

This is what Tim has to say for Lily Allen's blog, let's read!!
To read directly from Lily Allen's blog go here!

Lily,

Greetings from the badlands of Canada, and apologies for the slow reply. Rather than ramble on at length about how I feel about the various aspects of this, I'll happily state that I support you in this movement and agree that we have to act now.

I also feel strongly that the most vital step at this moment is to ensure that 'the artists', whether FAC-related or not, present a united front and a simple message. Otherwise the old 'divide and conquer' routine will be meted out to us and the artist community will be fobbed off by the ISPs, labels and government.

For example, do you/we go in with the simple message that file-sharing is wrong; or that file-sharing on a large scale is wrong; or that file sharing is an inevitability and we should focus on finding new ways of making money from music and supporting new talent?

I guess your view is that the FAC (or at least the likes of Nick Mason and Ed O'Brien) have been leaning too much towards the latter, which I would agree is not a strong enough line to be taking. If your view is that any file-sharing at all is wrong, then I can't agree with that either.

For what it's worth my opinion is that the second of those options should form the basis of the clear message that the artist community delivers to the government. Judging by the proposed 'industry statement', the FAC as a whole is ready to deliver and support that message, and if there can be agreement between them and the rest of us as to how the ISPs should 'police' large-scale piracy, and how to ensure that this doesn't become grounds for an excessive erosion of civil liberties (as Matthew says below), then that would put the artist community in a really strong position. (It also seems obvious to me that legal action should be taken against sites that blatantly encourage large-scale file-sharing, cf Pirate Bay in Sweden etc. The 'reasons' for not doing this seem very flimsy, and this issue could easily be covered by new legislation.)

The issue of how to generate money going forward seems sketchy at the moment, and presumably if we're hoping to license music to the ISPs in a TV/radio style then that would again be a matter of legislation. This doesn't appear to be covered by the current statement and is obviously pretty vital. Maybe it needs to be one step at a time - I can see the sense in that. On the other hand, it seems like this could be the moment for sweeping change that includes new licensing rules for ISPs.

Anyway, that's more than enough from me. Hopefully by articulating my thoughts I'm not merely repeating what you already think, but either way I'm with you.

See you soon,

Tim