# Lily Allen: Copying Isn't Alright... Unless It's Done By Lily Allen



## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

"The folks over at TorrentFreak alerted me to the news that singer Lily Allen, who made some news last week for speaking out against file sharing and against artists who have defended file sharing, has put up a blog, called "It's Not Alright," to talk about this particular subject. In one of her very first posts, she reposted an entire Techdirt post about 50 Cents' view on piracy and how it's part of the marketing. Allen goes on to then say that this is not alright and that 50 Cent is being selfish and isn't thinking about everyone else. But what's quite odd is that Ms. Allen, while complaining about such unfair copying, seemed to have absolutely no problem with copying my entire Techdirt post -- without credit or a link. As I said when asked by TorrentFreak for my response:"
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090921/0527456270.shtml


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I can see the point....I too wish there wasn't so much copying and pasting of techdirt at TSG...................


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> I can see the point....I too wish there wasn't so much copying and pasting of techdirt at TSG...................


You obviously missed the point. Or didn't read, again.

Techdirt has no problem with copying entire articles.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> You obviously missed the point. Or didn't read, again.
> 
> Techdirt has no problem with copying entire articles.


I have no interest in reading it again 

It was a joke, RootbeaR 

didn't you see the -------------> 



lighten up bud


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## sommop (Sep 21, 2009)

____________________
http://www.movabletype.org/members/ihllwslo0


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

"It seems that a few folks misunderstood the point of my post yesterday in joking about Lily Allen's double standard in ranting against unfair copying while copying blog posts from other sites. And Lily herself appears to be among those people. She's posted an apology, though, a bit petulantly, starting in all capital letters:

I THINK ITS QUITE OVIOUS THAT I WASNT TRYING TO PASS OF THOSE WORDS AS MY OWN , HERE IS A LINK TO THE WEBSIITE I ACQUIRED THE PIECE FROM . Apologies to Michael Masnick"
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090922/0310156273.shtml

I could give her a link on where to *acquire* movies and music.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> ..................
> 
> I could give her a link on where to *acquire* movies and music.


I think we're all aware of that


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

In all seriousness.....why is this article important?
Allen is obviously a hypocrite......but is there some angle to the article other than outing her?
I don't like to see plagiarism and see nothing wrong in calling her out on it.....it's a lack of intellectual honesty.
I've seen people in CD accidentally not post links or give credit due......but in Allen's case, I didn't see a quick response to correct the impression she manufactured.

Do you think her hypocrisy in some way invalidates the argument that illegal file swapping is a crime that needs to be addressed?


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Start a thread in CD, I am just posting a follow up to original article.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> Start a thread in CD, I am just posting a follow up to original article.


No.....you can make the request, but I'm with in my right's to discuss the article...... it goes against the purpose of this forum to restrict my question about the article..
http://forums.techguy.org/5423326-post1.html
excerpt>


> Please use this forum to post interesting tech-related news articles that you come across, and *to discuss articles that others have shared.*


Of course, you don't have to respond.
But then..... some people might wonder why.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Then go ahead and discuss. 

If you keep it about the article and not about me, I may even join in.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> Then go ahead and discuss.
> 
> If you keep it about the article and not about me, I may even join in.


OK......beyond the aspect of Allen being a hypocrite, what is the object of the article in relationship to technology?
As you posted the articles, you seem to have seen something or you likely wouldn't have posted them.

Would you like to share that thought?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

I did a little reading up on Lily Allen, and maybe I was a bit harsh.....perhaps it was just haste and frustration that lead to forgetting to post credit to a source that was likely to have been a source of that frustration.

Article here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8267142.stm
about Allen, her blog and the situation that as an artist just had to be irritating.

ecerpt>


> Forty billion music files were downloaded without payment in 2008, global music industry body the IFPI said, meaning 95% of all digital music was downloaded illegally.


Well, haven't I seen arguments that those weren't really lost sales, that these thieves actually went out and bought the music if they liked it?
( RootbeaR, didn't you post to that effect? )

But this looks contradictory:


> Worldwide album sales have halved in the 10 years since the original mass file-sharing software, Napster, appeared.


!!



> The peer-to-peer debate has been rumbling on for a tedious, divisive and largely fruitless decade, with illegal traffic continuing to grow as lawsuits, education campaigns and anti-piracy technologies have come and gone.


No wonder Lily Allen is frustrated.



> Ministers will soon decide whether to suspend the internet accounts of serial file-sharers.


These thieves may have to go back to the old fashioned way of stealing......


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> OK......beyond the aspect of Allen being a hypocrite, what is the object of the article in relationship to technology?


Maybe ask in web & e-mail forum what copying from internet has to do with technology.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> Maybe ask in web & e-mail forum what copying from internet has to do with technology.


In the scheme of all things, that could be a possibility......but as the articles you posted were about plagiarism and not the issue of illegal downloading that Allen addresses, the connection you try to make is mostly sophistry, imo.

You could, however, mark this thread solved


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

I didn't post her article.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> I didn't post her article.



I never posted that you did.....you posted articles from techdirt concerning Allen.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> I never posted that you did.....you posted articles from techdirt concerning Allen.


Yes, concerning her, not her concerns. isnt it ovious?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> Yes, concerning her, not her concerns. isnt it ovious?


Well, the two are connected, but my interest is to what connection does her possible plagiarism have to do with the aspects of piracy that were the original focus at techdirt and resulted with her alleged plagiarism.
Why is it 'Tech-related News'?

Or isn't it tech news?
Or are you merely presenting a case to discredit the argument Allen projects about illegal downloading?

You haven't made a connection here, nor do I see one ...between Allen's plagiarism and illegal file sharing in the technical sense.
Actually, imo....this thread would be better placed in debate as it initially focused on ethics in general rather than news about technology.
Don't worry, I haven't made a request..(  )...your silence to the issue I present speaks volumes


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

"Really don't want to turn this into an all Lily Allen all the time blog, but reader Peter has sent in something rather interesting: When Lily was first trying to get attention, she created a couple of mixtapes with a ton of songs from other artists... available as MP3 downloads, and mixing in her own tracks. This is a well-known tradition in some circles and a great way to get some attention. We're all for it. But... it seems quite hypocritical of Ms. Allen to claim that file sharing is somehow evil and destroying the industry when she appears to be an active participant and used it to promote herself (oh my goodness! free music working as promotion!). According to the tracklisting of the second mixtape, it included 19 tracks by artists other than Lily Allen. Both mixtapes (mixtape 1 and mixtape 2) are available directly off of Lily's website, LilyAllenMusic.com, which has a copyright notice at the bottom from EMI."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090923/1409046297.shtml


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

" 1. You claim that file sharing is harming new music. Yet, at the same time, a recent study has shown that more new music is being created today than ever before in history. Partly, that's because new tools have made it cheaper than ever to create and record new music. But those same technologies are also making it cheaper to promote and distribute that new music. All of those factors seem to outweigh the "piracy" issue. So, how can you claim that it's harming new music, when the evidence suggests more new music is being created than ever before?

2. You claim that "not enough people are paying for music." However, just a few months ago, the economists employed by PRS, which is a big part of the UK music industry, released a study suggesting that the music market was growing, not declining. They agreed that retail sales have dropped, but that live show attendance and other offerings (merchandise, etc.) have outweighed the decline in music sales. In other words, people are spending more on music, it's just going into different things -- just like 50 Cent said. Given that the economists who represent your industry are saying the opposite of what you claim must be happening, can you support the claim that not enough people are paying?

3. According to many reports, you benefited greatly yourself by promoting your music via MySpace, which allowed people to listen to your music for free. Other reports have suggested that you have complained in the past that your record label does not give you much, if any, money from CD sales. Given that you seem to have used "free music" to your own advantage in the past, how can you say that "music can't be free"?

4. You are posting your blog on a Blogspot.com domain, which is provided by Google to you, for free. It cost Google money to create this service, and all of its services, and yet it has been able to create a business model whereby it makes money by giving away certain aspects of its business for free. Google is one of the most successful companies in the world. Why do you insist with such certainty that using free as a part of a business model is a bad thing?

5. There are a growing number of artists -- big, medium and small -- who have learned to embrace file sharing, and have found that it has helped them to better connect with their audience, and when combined with a smart business model, makes them more money than in the past. Given that's the case, is it possible that the problem is artists choosing a bad business model rather than "piracy" being the problem?

6. Despite your shading of the issue, there have been and continue to be proposals in the UK that would lead to people being kicked off the internet -- yes, for a limited time, but still removed from the internet. Can you explain how that makes people any more likely to buy your music?"
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090923/1138026294.shtml

No one buys music anymore?
http://forums.techguy.org/tech-related-news/863151-beatles-sell-2-25-million.html

Seems to me they do. If they think it is worth buying.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

"Again, the whole point here is that what you did was entirely natural and made plenty of sense. Lots of people do it today. They do it because they love music. There's nothing wrong with that, and you know it (or, apparently, knew it at one point in the past). And, there are many ways to take advantage of that fact. Just as 50 Cent does. Just as you did. Going to war with the fans who made you who you are today, in part because of your own infringing behavior, just doesn't make any sense. You keep saying that file sharing harms artists, but it existed five years ago as well, and didn't harm you. It helped you. So why would you want to take that away from everyone else?

Update: Wow. In the half an hour or so that I took to write this post, Lily erased the blog post where she responded (I've got a screenshot if anyone wants to see it), and just added a note to Twitter, saying that she's shut down the entire blog due to too much abuse. Lily, it's not abuse if we're just asking you to rethink your positions that appear to not be particularly well thought out."
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090924/0241556300.shtml


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

The verbal abuse Allen took was pretty horrific from what little I read yesterday of Allen's blog and several times obscene.

But let's look at the very first line of the article at techdirt:


> In my last post about Lily Allen's hypocrisy in uploading tons of songs without authorization, while saying it's good to cut off internet access for regular uploaders, one of the commenters made a good point: we should use this as a teaching moment, to try to show Ms. Allen why her position is wrong, rather than focusing on calling her a hypocrite.


As I've noted before about Allen's personal situation, it's (edit: ) wasn't originally an issue of illegal downloading of copyrighted materials, it was an issue of plagiarism....presenting the words of others as if they are the creation of Allen.
(edit: ) but your recent post does bring issue to her being an offender of illegal uploading.

There was no hypocrisy in her position of illegal downloading.
edit: just read about her issue about uploading copyrighted materials at her site.....definitely makes her look bad if true.

But there is a misrepresentation of facts in what appears to be an attempt to rationalize the activity of illegal file sharing.
I've noticed techdirt often speaks to the illegal activity as 'file sharing' blurring the issue at hand in England, the cutting off of the internet connections of people involved in the illegal activity which Allen seems to be addressing.



> while saying it's good to cut off internet access for regular uploaders


What is a regular uploader?
If a 'regular uploader' is intentionally committing a crime, why shouldn't this activity be addressed?


> we should use this as a teaching moment


Indeed.....Masnick is essentially arguing for the right to ignore the system of laws society has put in place for it's own protection. As such.....he becomes an 'outlaw' advocate.
Allen may actually be an outlaw (  )

What impressed me the most about Allen's blog was not so much the expression of her position, but the intensity of dishonesty and outspokenness of the promoters/participators of/in crime in England.
In the debate forum, I mentioned that the issue was one of a social nature and the reaction to Allen's blog certainly demonstrates that point.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> "Really don't want to turn this into an all Lily Allen all the time blog, but reader Peter has sent in something rather interesting: When Lily was first trying to get attention, she created a couple of mixtapes with a ton of songs from other artists... available as MP3 downloads, and mixing in her own tracks. This is a well-known tradition in some circles and a great way to get some attention. We're all for it. But... it seems quite hypocritical of Ms. Allen to claim that file sharing is somehow evil and destroying the industry when she appears to be an active participant and used it to promote herself (oh my goodness! free music working as promotion!). According to the tracklisting of the second mixtape, it included 19 tracks by artists other than Lily Allen. Both mixtapes (mixtape 1 and mixtape 2) are available directly off of Lily's website, LilyAllenMusic.com, which has a copyright notice at the bottom from EMI."
> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090923/1409046297.shtml


There really needs to be more documentation on this.
Did Allen have the right's to distribute the works in question?
It's not an issue of distributing copyrighted material, it's whether she had the right.

If true....and Allen had no rights to it, she's no better that the people Mesnick defends and definitely has a credibility problem.

For now, Mesnick's credibility isn't worth much and Allen's is questionable.

edit:
The question of Allen using copyrighted material with out permission looks confusing.
I came upon this question at another forum:


> If she wasn't given the all clear to use those songs in her mixtapes why would her own label host them in full?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

So, if Allen is a lying, thieving uploader and contributes to the delinquency of minors and adults alike...(  ).....
Has anything changed about the argument to punish those that participate in criminal/illegal uploading/downloading?


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Still wondering why you posted this in Tech-Related News.
There is a lot to consider and debate about the ethics, or rather the lack of ethics of both techdirt and possibly Allen.
But little of it seems to address the ethics of illegal file sharing or any other technology, more to the issue of the characters of Mesnick and Allen.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> ......................
> 
> No one buys music anymore?
> http://forums.techguy.org/tech-related-news/863151-beatles-sell-2-25-million.html
> ...


Excuse me, but who is claiming 'no one buys music anymore'?
Did Allen make that claim?


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

"That's still a pretty big overreaction to such things -- especially since none of these artists have been able to respond to the basic questions posed by many of us, asking for any evidence that the problem they face is actually unauthorized file sharing, rather than a shift in technologies and business models. Again, as we've pointed out countless times, the size of the overall UK music industry is growing, not shrinking, and those who have put in place business models that embrace file sharing have seen their own markets grow, not shrink. So, it's hard to see how the claim that "file sharing" harms the industry squares with reality. Instead, it sounds like a failure to adapt a business model is harming some artists, while other, smarter artists are doing just fine."
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090924/1741256311.shtml


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

> Again, as we've pointed out countless times, the size of the overall UK music industry is growing, not shrinking,


But it does seem logical that the UK music industry would be growing faster with out all the crime.
I think there is much obscuring between free legal music file sharing and the criminal activity of illegal file sharing of copyrighted works.
Obviously...... legal file sharing is an excellent means of promotion.


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## LauraMJ (Mar 18, 2004)

Stoner said:


> Still wondering why you posted this in Tech-Related News.
> 
> There is a lot to consider and debate about the ethics, or rather the lack of ethics of both techdirt and possibly Allen.
> But little of it seems to address the ethics of illegal file sharing or any other technology, more to the issue of the characters of Mesnick and Allen.


Postings in Tech News is more of a FYI type of posting. We've noticed lately that there have been a number of threads that have become debates, and that is not what this particular forum is for. A bit of discussion, or related news, or something is, of course, fine, but a true debate over the morality issues of a particular article and so forth really needs to stay in CD.

Therefore, it's been decided that from now on when someone feels there is debatable material in an news article posted in this forum, they need to start a thread in CD about it. They can post a link to the thread in the Tech News forum, or post a link to the original article, but either way, we are going to insist that debates on articles be kept in their appropriate place,.....Civilized Debate. This forum is intended as more of a gathering place for current tech news, and not a gathering place for debates. 

We plan on keeping an eye on this forum more and will be closing any thread that becomes an obvious debate.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Hi LauraMJ........

I posted response in the Site Comments & Suggestions forum, here:
http://forums.techguy.org/site-comments-suggestions/864340-tech-related-news-pro-illegal.html


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## aka Brett (Nov 25, 2008)

Another thread where this video is befitting


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

.......I'll take a red Corvette


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