Lilly Allen, File Sharing And My Thoughts

In the last week or so Lilly Allen has caused a bit of a stir on line with her “blog”. Well calling it a bit of a stir is an under statement, more like a shit storm. I can’t link to what she wrote, because she has taken the offending postings down. However I did get a chance to read them before they were removed. Basically Lilly came out in support of the Labour Governments plan to remove repeat file sharers from the web.

Since the shit storm, Lilly has backed down a little or in her words “had a rethink” and is now in favour of not disconnecting them but cutting the amount of band width down that they can use.

See I can understand Labour coming up with their blinkered bought view. Lets face it they have taken the music industries money. And yes we can argue that Lilly has also.

But there is a difference.

Lilly stated that file sharing hurt artists and stops new talent being discovered. I disagree, the music industry has been exploiting musicians and ripping off the public for decades. Which they were able to get away with while they were the gatekeepers to what we got to see and hear.

But the music industry got caught napping. The internet came along, and as it has in so many other industries it has removed the gatekeeper. For the music fan the internet has been a positive thing. It has forced down the price of owning music, from cd’s to being able to get individual tracks as downloads.

Yes there is still lots of music that gets downloaded for free. But it is incorrect to assume that these are lost sales. Very often these are people that would never of bought the record anyway

For years now musicians have made their money from touring and merchandise, and not record sales. The only people profiting from the record sales are the record companies.

Musicians need to get fans to come along to the concerts and buy merchandise. How do they do that? Have as many people listen to their music as possible. With the logic being “oh I like that group I’ll go and see them play live”. The only thing that I can see that will get in the way of this is if the artist/musicians involved get a rep for miming to their songs when playing live. That is unforgivable. Plus will put fans off from going to see them live.

Maybe Lilly could answer the question from all the money that the RIAA has gotten in the fines awarded by the courts in the US, how much of that has actually made it back to the artists?

Despite what Lilly has said the internet has made it easier for new artists. It has enabled them to build a fan base, and get their music out to the public easier. It has also enabled established acts to connect with their fans in a more direct way. In fact it has removed the barrier of entry for the artists of getting their music out there.

Now I can see why there were personal attacks on Lilly from the online community. They felt that Lilly was attacking them. Which in a way I think she was. But that doesn’t justify the personal attacks. I think you can debate/discuss the issues and the points raised without getting personal. If you make it personal then how can you ever hope to change a persons mind with your reasoned argument? That person won’t be listening to what you have to say.

I feel sorry for Lilly. I don’t think she realised how much her fans, and the public feel about this subject. If Lilly reads this which I doubt she ever will, I would like to invite her up North to discuss this subject on camera over a cuppa while out with my dogs. I think it would make a great vidcast. One day, one of these celebs will accept the invite and then I’m done for as I won’t be prepared.

Some Great Free Stuff From Microsoft

Wow I bet that title shocked folks. Yep Microsoft do some great stuff, and it is free as well!

Windows Live Writer (WLW) – I had to start with this it for me is the best bit of blogging software out there at the moment. So good in fact that on my Macbook I have VMWare Fusion running an XP virtual machine so I can use WLW on my Macbook. It really is worth the effort. There are also some nice free plugins that can be installed that expand it’s functionality.

Windows Live Photos (WLP) – You can install this at the same time as you install WLW, which I do recommend. There is one feature here that I find very useful indeed, and that is the ability to stitch photos together to make a panorama (details here). You can see the results I got from a panorama I did with it here.

Live Mesh – 5GB of online storage for your files. Runs on Windows (naturally), Macs (although there is a Snow Leopard incompatibility at the moment), the web and other mobile devices (no iPhone client yet). So 5GB of synced stored files, and the ability to access the desk top of the computer as well. So when you are away from your desk or office your able to get easy access to them and the apps that access them.

Office Live – Want another 5GB of storage just for your office documents? Want to collaborate on them as well? Then this great M$ freebie is just for you.

Sky Drive – 25GB of online storage! Yep a massive 25GB of free online storage. ‘nuff said really.

Of course with the above there may be file size restrictions. But if you are using these to back up photos, documents and the odd mp3, then this shouldn’t be a problem.

So using three free Microsoft services I make that 35GB of free online storage. Not bad if you ask me. Plus don’t forget when Office 10 comes out there will be a free online version of that to include in this list. It won’t be the full version naturally, but hopefully be more functional than Google Docs. I think that Google Docs will have some pretty stiff competition.

Yet Another “Social Media” Phone

Yet again another new phone that is aimed as a “social media” phone. This time it’s a Google Android phone from Motorola. I hate it when the phone company or network provider try to sell a new phone trying to ride on the back of “social media”. I’ve ranted about this previously about Nokia.

What they are trying to pass off as a “unique selling point” isn’t really. Any “smart phone” that can have apps installed on it can be a “social media” phone. The Google Android G1 phone is a “social media” phone, as is the Blackberry and the iPhone along with the Palm Pre. They all have Twitter and Facebook apps, plus other apps to hook up to other social networks. Also the majority of these apps are free and pretty good as well. In fact I prefer accessing Facebook from my iPhone to using the website (yes the apps can be that good).

I suppose to a general population that is none the wiser then this “unique selling point” may get them the odd extra sale. For those in the know we just aren’t fooled by this sales/marketing snow job.