Lily and the pirate bashers

Lily Allen's rant against file-sharing and her subsequent change of opinion illustrates perfectly how the piracy debate in the UK is going round in circles.
For several years, record labels and ISPs have bickered about how to tackle the problem, with the labels insisting that the ISPs should police their networks better and the ISPs arguing it's the responsibility of the labels to better protect their content.

Following warnings that if neither side could play nicely legislation would be introduced, the government finally intervened and the Digital Britain report was drawn up.

Miraculously, an agreement that both sides were happy with was reached and, for a while, the two sides concentrated their attention on fighting the pirates rather than each other. Then, Lord Mandelson scrapped.

If For several years the record labels and the ISPs bickered about how to tackle the problem 99 the proposals in favour of a draconian policy to disconnect suspected file-sharers and we were back to square one.

Lily Allen, along with other artists including Elton John and James Blunt, expressed support for Mandelson's plans -but it seems to me that these musicians had only just joined the debate.

After a lengthy meeting where the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) put the case for warnings and speed capping as a last resort, Allen's camp shifted their position into line with that of the original Digital Britain proposals.

It's great that Lily and her supporters were willing to listen and understand the burden that Mandelson's proposals would place on ISPs and people wrongly accused of piracy. However, it's simultaneously infuriating that people in a position to influence others unthinkingly adopt an unworkable opinion and join in the debate several months after settlements have already been reached.

By setting the debate back, Allen has only succeeded in delaying the application of realistic, practical solutions to piracy.