The UK's smallest television station, ever

If you had to pitch a business in one of these five locations...

• Greenwich, London
• Bristol, Avon
• Swindon, Wiltshire
• Sheffield, South Yorkshire
• Wellingborough, Northamptonshire

...you'd probably go for one of the first four, as the chances are, you'll have heard of those places. Wellingborough is a small market town in the east midlands which isn't exactly on anyone's radar. Yet, unbelievably, it achieved parity with those much more famous locations back in the early 1970s due to a television experiment.

Yesterday, I blogged about the current batch of 'local TV' channels that have arrived in various bits of the country on Freeview's channel 8 slot. Yet I completely missed the opportunity to talk about my hometown's role in the first ever local TV schemes rolled out in Britain.

In the 1970s, when television was heavily regulated, Christopher Chataway, the Conservative Minister of Posts and Telecommunications was lobbied so that localised television could become a reality. This meant officially allowing broadcasts from outside the established BBC and ITV systems. It wasn't a 'broadcast' in the strictest sense, in that these stations would have to be run via cable.

These days, when we think of cable television, Virgin Media is the blanket brand name that's cornered that market. It seems odd to think there was ever a need for cable television in the 1970s, but for some residents, television aerials gave them sub-standard reception and in some cases, they weren't even allowed to have such things mounted on their roof.

For these reasons, cable television has actually been fairly well established since the 1950s, relaying the established TV channels to viewers, and usually throwing in radio and a few additional ITV regions as a bonus. In fact, British company Rediffusion was launched in 1928 to 'rebroadcast' radio and early television feeds. Subsequently they would go onto to help form ITV by establishing their first London weekday franchise in 1955.

Growing up in Wellingborough in the 1980s, I had known of a few households that had taken cable TV, which brought them the pre-Sky delights of The Children's Channel and SelecTV, alongside the usual four channel line-up. I never got to see this first hand myself, but rumour had it that you could also have ITV's midlands and London offerings (Central, Thames/LWT) in addition to the 'default' Anglia region. I was in a cash-strapped household and just being able to pick up Central was a welcome bonus.

By the early 1990s, the town's cable supplier offering this (Mobile Radio), had changed to selling a diet of Sky One, Sky News and Eurosport alongside the four terrestrial channels, as long as you paid £5 a month.

Getting back to the main topic, the Conservative government had granted licenses for five local community stations in the early 1970s, planned to run until 1976. The first to launch was Greenwich Cablevision in July 1972, run by the south London district's cable business with an eye on increasing cable subscriptions in the area. This was already a captive audience due to a hill blocking off conventional broadcasts from the Crystal Palace transmitter. Half the finances for this were put up by Canadian businesses.

Second to launch was the 'Bristol Channel', on 17 May 1973. It was run by the city's cable supplier, Rediffusion, who at that point was a 49% stakeholder in Thames Television.

Sheffield Cablevision saw the light of day in August that year, backed by British Relay Wireless, swiftly followed by Swindon Viewpoint the following month, which was financed by EMI for their Radio Rentals cable network they had established in Wiltshire's pseudo-city.

What strikes me about Wellingborough's foray into this early broadcasting experiment is that the town certainly doesn't strike you as a media-savvy environment. It's an average-sized market town, dwarfed by at least two or three other places in the county. It would be understandable if its bigger brother, Northampton, had gone in for this venture, or at least Corby or Kettering. I don't mean to bash my hometown, but it's a fairly underwhelming place, like most middling towns across the east midlands. It's on the same level as Loughborough, Worksop, Rugby or Chesterfield.

Bear in mind that even the well-established ITV system had seen some desperate situations. Wales-based broadcaster WWN hit financial troubles just over a year into their contract, despite having been given a lot of programmes by Granada and ATV for free. WWN had to be purchased outright by neighbouring region TWW.

Also, Border Television coasted along with bankruptcy almost staring them in the face during the 1980s. It's not surprising when you look at their broadcast area, the sparsely-populated regions of Cumbria, Dumfries and Galloway, The Isle Of Man and various other parts of the England/Scotland divide.

In any case, 24 March 1974 is when Wellingborough Cablevision got piped into various homes across the town and was made available by Mobile Radio in Midland Road, who were also purveyors of televisions, radios, hi-fi systems and various white goods.

Mobile Radio was based here, in what is now a solicitor's office.

While the other stations were backed by big pockets, and in some cases having help from established players in broadcasting, Wellingborough Cablevision was owned by the curiously-named Wellingborough Traders Television Relay. In other words, local businesses.

At this point, I should concede that I've never seen a single frame of this station, due to not having been born at the time of its launch, and only being about six months old when it came off air. However, I'm just so intrigued at my humble hometown having its own television station, no matter how ill-fated it could have been, that I just had to write this article. Oh, and Wikipedia is pretty sparse on the subject.

The station was black-and-white only, and the 'studio' was situated in what is now Silk nightclub, just a few hundred yards up from Mobile Radio's HQ. It's believed the cable network was VHF-only, so up-converters were provided to subscribers so signals could be seen on the newer UHF televisions.

Silk nightclub. Believed to be one-time home of the UK's tiniest television station. Last time I was in here, I met the Happy Monday's Bez, smashed off his tits.

From online reading about some older residents' experiences, it's not quite clear exactly what was broadcast on this fledgling station, but it gained the affectionate nickname 'WellyTelly'. A friend talks of how he appeared live on the station, singing as part of a children's choir. The station had visited schools in the area, presumably using the idea that local newspapers have, attracting the eyeballs of parents who want to see their little cherubs gain a bit of fame.

I'm told the studio "backed onto Glenbank" (the dead-end terraced road behind Silk), which means this slightly unglamorous sight would have greeted visitors. Not exactly Shepherd's Bush or the ITV Tower.

Warwick Primary School in the town's Kingsway area had their 1974 Christmas concert televised to cable viewers, and Weavers School (based close to the Queensway estate) were keen to show off their new gym.

Local woman Teresa Webb was a presenter, and interviewed a few star names, such as veteran crooner Frankie Vaughan and Canadian singer/actor Edmund Hockridge. I can't be certain, but with no theatre in the town at that time, it's possible these people would have been performing at The Fir Tree nightclub, which had been a magnet for a fair few household names.

The set-up of the station didn't please everyone. "We were promised a peppercorn rent for allowing the cable on our house," said local resident Edward Chambers. "We never got a penny."

Broadcasting to an area an eighth of the size of Leicester was never going to be a long-lasting situation. Despite the five cable community experiments being allowed to continue beyond the initial 1976 expiry date, Wellingborough CableVision closed on 24 March 1975, exactly a year after it had launched. It was the second to do so, with the Bristol Channel having beamed its last output ten days earlier. Sheffield and Greenwich stations would also turn into a white dot the following year.

The present day Mobile Radio shop, which will be closing next month.

Swindon Viewpoint managed to survive for many years. In 1980, EMI pulled the plug on funding and staffing, but left the equipment with the station after local protests. This channel continued to run on and off throughout the 1980s and up until the mid 1990s. Nowadays it runs online.

What of Wellingborough's legacy though? Absolutely no trace of recordings online, not even an idea of the schedules. Yet actual physical traces are still around, according to local resident Martin Percy...

"If you know what you are looking for around Wellingborough, you can still see cables running along the walls of houses, just below the gutters, and a few booster amplifiers for the old 'piped TV' system. There are even traces of the old Broadcast Relay radio service, installed in the 30s, which relayed one or two radio stations around the older parts of town, recipients having a speaker, and a selector switch....I can remember a great aunt and uncle in Albert Road listening to The Archers on the Home Service, later BBC Radio 4, on theirs, up until about 1970."

Plus, it seems one engineer from those days has gone on to greater things by taking up a role at Virgin Media's R&D department.

I'm quite keen to discover more about this short-lived broadcasting experiment. Little is written about Wellingborough's efforts, somewhat understandably, so I'll be making enquiries. I'll have to be quick. Mobile Radio itself closes down in August.

The tale of local media doesn't end for me with Wellingborough CableVision. There was another local cable service, on a county-wide level, which launched in the 1990s, but that's a subject for a later blog...

When television on your doorstep is just wrong

The first eight years of my life were spent in the era of three channel TV, with BBC 1 offering shiny-floored glitz-and-glamour, BBC 2 seemingly offering a non-stop child-unfriendly diet of highbrow documentaries and ITV being the plethora of the great, the good, the awful and the downright odd.

For most of its life, ITV was a patchwork quilt of stations dotted up and down the country, each of them seemingly having their own speciality. Fast-forward to the present day and modern ITV is pretty much styled on those women's magazines you see at the supermarket checkout, with lurid headlines announcing how an evil rapist uncle ripped someone's life apart, why one woman's husband likes bathing in yak's urine and look, Kim Kardashian has cellulite on her thighs, doesn't that make you feel better?

It's easy to mock ITV, but in the digital era, they now sit alongside tens of other channels fighting for your eyeballs. You can't exactly blame them for seeking the lowest common denominator, although there has been some pretty unforgiveable cases of not just scraping the barrel, but removing the barrel and digging up what's beneath it. It's baffling as to why, in the 21st century, we have the council-estate bear-baiting contest that is The Jeremy Kyle Show; why the mentally ill are invited on to be mocked on The X Factor and how can anyone laugh at the catchphrase farm emanating from that post-millennial Bobby Davro, Keith Lemon?

One thing I'm conscious of, is that as I approach middle age, I don't want to turn into the finger-wagging dullard who sneers at the younger generations, spewing out sentences that begin "Back in my day...". It's become quite a challenge, as the mere existence of Nicki Minaj and Ed Sheeran has made me envy the deaf.

Back in my d... Um, when I was growing up, TV was a great companion for me. My first memories were of getting up really early on a Saturday morning and sitting through the test cards and start-up sequences, having our colour television all to myself.

The BBC would usually be the first to open its doors, giving us Battle Of The Planets followed by their main attraction. Swap Shop would launch a full hour ahead of Tiswas, yet the Noel-Edmonds-helmed compendium of phone-in chat and proto-Freecycle trading was such dreadful tedium that I nearly always opted for ITV despite the first sightings of Chris Tarrant being an eon away.

Now, Tiswas was one of the many gems that was generated by the ITV system of old. Fifteen different companies covered the nation, along with the Channel Islands, each with a region to themselves, yet expected to pitch in to the 'network' as a whole. You didn't always get what your regional neighbours were watching. It paid to keep an eye on the TV Times magazine...

This was multi-channel before the term was even coined. And living in Northamptonshire meant that although Anglia was our main provider of ITV, we could also opt for a version of ITV from the midlands, albeit on a slightly weaker signal. Most folk in Wellingborough stuck with Anglia for the solid picture quality, although the midlands broadcasts were very much watchable, with just the merest hint of haze.

The offerings from the midlands company (ATV until 1982, then Central onwards) were a lot sharper than Anglia. Switch on Central News, and you'd hear of a nightclub stabbing in Leicester. Go for Anglia, and it's a cat stuck up a tree in Cambridge.

It was more than just news. Everyone's heard of the output made by ATV and Central, which was eye-catching and beautifully anarchic. From the aforementioned Tiswas, over to Revolver; The Muppet Show; Spitting Image; Hardwicke House; Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Sapphire And Steel, the Birmingham-based guys ran riot over the schedules. Of course, there was the more family-friendly stuff which also hit the ratings, like The Upper Hand; New Faces (a watchable Britain's Got Talent); Bullseye and Celebrity Squares.

What's Anglia notable for? Survival; Sale Of The Century and Tales Of The Unexpected. The first of those is undoubtedly a remarkable venture in television broadcasting, but for my tastes, Survival is in the box marked 'Worthy but dull'. Long after they had made a few runs on the network, Anglia would fill a few slots in their own region with scratchy repeats of the exotic-animal-spotting documentary.

It's not too difficult to see that the ITV network of old was dominated by a few big players, with the far-flung less-populated regions barely getting a look-in. There certainly was a 'Big Five'. Being based in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds meant that Thames, LWT, ATV/Central, Granada and Yorkshire could dominate the prime-time schedules with their own big-name productions. The others in the system were forever to be 625-lined Cinderellas, putting in their bit with children's telly and daytime efforts, with only the odd sniff at a post-7pm networked slot.

Central had a very slick presentation about it, making it compelling viewing even when your favourite programmes weren't on. By contrast, Anglia resembled a museum of the air, with silver-haired presenters stuck in front of a locked camera, reading out the schedules with some curtains as the background.

As a Tiswas fan, it's hard to forgive Anglia for dropping the show and taking Southern's Saturday Banana not once, but twice. I remember enduring this tame Saturday morning offering and wishing for Tiswas to return to our screens. I didn't quite grasp how to tune into ATV, where I'd have found Chris Tarrant and the Phantom Flan Flinger all present and correct.

Of course, later on as I discovered all about the different regions, I used it to my advantage. Popping over to my grandfather's house in Surrey was a great opportunity to watch The Smurfs on LWT. It also made me wonder what the hell Fangface was, having glanced an eye at Yorkshire's 'regional variations'. It hit Central, and my curiousity turned to disappointment. Ditto Sport Billy.

These days, none of this matters, as both regions are 99% identical, with only the 6pm regional news and a few sub-five-minute bulletins being the only difference. Every ITV offering from Berwick-upon-Tweed down to Penzance is pretty much the same. When Margaret Thatcher allowed the stations to take over each other from the 1990s onwards, ITV went from being weird and wonderful to being sterile and safe.

So we had Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, trying to undo the damage by allowing Freeview's channel 8 slot to be used by local TV stations. A few of these have launched, with Norwich's Mustard TV and Grimsby's Estuary TV taking the 'local happenings' approach. It's sensible stuff, not unlike the regional TV of old, yet on a lower budget. Despite the smaller audiences and narrow finances, both these stations do well with smart graphics and unrelenting enthusiasm. However, it's London Live that grabs the headlines, and all for the wrong reasons.

Being a station owned by the Evening Standard and Independent Newspapers, it's keen to make a big splash and to be known by every Londoner. While there is fresh local content in abundance, the directors decided to fill up a lot of the schedule with programmes acquired from the BBC, ITV and Channel Four. So you get Smack The Pony; Peep Show; Bugs and London's Burning, with the home-grown live stuff emanating from a small studio in the HQ of the newspaper-producing parent company.

Thanks to the satellite broadcasts, I'm able to watch the channel, despite being 70 miles away from the capital. It's not a pleasant experience. Obviously, being so far out of its catchment area, it's not really for me anyway, but I really do think that if I was living in London, I'd not give this channel a second glance.

The biggest mistake the channel has made is to aim itself purely at 18-25 year olds. To look at the presenters and studio is like looking into the window of Toni & Guy. It's running an MTV ethos and unsurprisingly, the original content has gained viewing figures as low as zero. Okay, so I'm citing some pessimistic ratings, but the average audience for their early evening show is around 4,000. When your broadcast area has at least a population of 10 million, that's a stunning failure.

The commissioning choices have reflected the desire to be a London-only BBC Three clone. On opening night, Londoners were subjected to some 'street footballers' and a Jamie-Oliver-wannabe chef who goes out checking 'street food'. It's all urban chic, segued with rapid camera whips and coming across like the station Nathan Barley and his media chums always wanted to make.

It should come as no surprise that the station is facing failure. The regional ITV programmes of old were watched by your mum and dad, and that's what London Live should have aimed for. There's no point targeting the current generation of youth, as local television is by far one of the naffest things from their perspective. It's dull, it's televisual Horlicks, it's 100% Alan Partridge. I very much doubt teenagers and twenty-somethings give two shits about what's on Freeview channel 8. They're off out clubbing and meeting their mates. At that age, so was I.

To grab the eyes of the young, you'd have to be like E4 or ITV2, be bold with expensive imports like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead. And that's obviously not what the local TV initiative was meant for.

There's no harm in going for the middle-aged viewer sitting at home trying to wind down after a day's work. Outside the M25, that's what the new local stations are doing. I'm baffled as to why channel proprietors Evgeny and Alexander Lebedev decided Hoxtonite hipsters would ever switch on to London Live.

50 Things More Gothic And Respectable Than Twilight

1. Rentaghost
2. A child shining a torch upwards onto their face
   
3. Derek Acorah
4. The Trap Door
5. Long-forgotten ITV Saturday morning show Ghost Train
6. An actual ghost train
7. A lolly stick with "What do ghosts eat for dinner? Spookhetti!" printed on it.
8. A werewolf glove from a joke shop
9. The Groovy Ghoulies
10. Shakespear's Sister
    
11. A pair of novelty plastic Halloween fangs from ASDA, 9p
12. The Amityville Horror and the seven diabolical sequels that followed
13. The Demon Headmaster
14. Babylon Zoo
15. Count Duckula
16. Secretly keeping your hand hidden behind a door or desk and then making it 'strangle' you as if it's someone else's hand
17. The Monster Mash
18. Covering yourself in toilet roll as a cheap mummy costume for Halloween
19. A rubber bat on a piece of elastic
20. The Sarah-Jane Adventures
21. In comic strips, where the main character has an angel and an devil version of himself that give good/evil advice
22. Plan 9 From Outer Space
23. That ancient trick where you make your thumb appear detached from your hand
24. The skeleton baddies in arcade game Golden Axe
25. Ghostbusters 2
26. In The Night Garden
    
27. The joke "Why didn't the skeleton attend the ball? Because he had nobody to go with"
28. Evil Michael Knight
29. Cyndi Lauper
30. The flaming skulls in Sega arcade game Wonder Boy
31. Keith Harris & Orville's Messy Monsters game
32. Any October 31st editions of Whizzer and Chips
33. Alan Partridge's 'abstract zombie'
34. The Munsters
35. Meat Loaf
36. Caspar the Friendly Ghost
37. That one from Bananarama dressed as a devil in their video for Venus
38. The drama segment 'Dark Towers' from BBC Schools programme Look & Read
39. Dr and the Medics
40. Shiver and Shake comic
41. Carry On Screaming
42. Spray-on cobwebs
43. Any bored 6 year old girl dressed as a witch for a carnival
44. TNA wrestler Daffney
45. Grotbags the witch from Emu's World
    
46. Red-and-black striped tights
47. A badly-rendered drawing of an Iron Maiden album cover on a school exercise book, made by that greasy-haired kid who smells of marzipan
    
48. Those novelty eyes-on-springs glasses
49. Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde
50. Abbott & Costello meet Frankenstein
    

Wellingborough MP Peter Bone can't handle web critics

Enjoying your internet connection? Like browsing the web? You've been let down.

"You can be punished for the actions of a friend or even a neighbour who has used your Internet connection." - OpenRightsGroup on the Digital Economy Bill.

"Essentially translating as “We can, via the secretary of state for business, take down any website we don’t like simply by citing a connection to some form of copyright infringement” - Jamie Thompson on the Digital Economy Bill.

The UK is ready to get China-style censorship of the internet, with the forthcoming Digital Economy Act that was voted in against the tens of thousands of wishes expressed by ordinary computer users. A despicable collection of MPs voted in favour of online censorship.

Politicians are a breed of people who have a lowly reputation, wedged somewhere between a orphanage arsonist and a commercial radio DJ. With the shameless expenses scandal, and a national economy so broken not even Cash Converters would accept it, there appears to be no hope for MPs trying to prove they share the same DNA as us.

It's no wonder that over half the population would rather vote on Big Brother or whatever Simon-Cowell-fronted sneer-fest is running at the moment. If you're in the company of friends and mention that you take an interest in politics, you may as well have sprayed concentrated halitosis in their faces.

There's simply no interest in Parliament these days, and I think the MPs rather like that. With the heavily articulate wordings of proposed laws, the endless exchange of statistics and monotone speeches, it's no surprise Joe Sixpack doesn't tune in.

Besides, when have you had a politician actually LISTEN to you? They don't do that, do they?

Recently, the Digital Economy Bill was proposed by the Labour government to impose censorship on UK internet services, all in the name of "reducing piracy". Unsurprisingly, it didn't take long to realise that the bill had been lobbied for by the BPI - the UK's record industry. In fact, large portions of this censorship law had been written by the BPI.

We know the record industry is angered at the millions of MP3s available illegally on the internet, and have pushed an anti-piracy agenda so heavily that they ignore the bigger picture - why piracy occurs in the first place.

Digital files are easy to copy and distribute, they cost almost next-to-nothing, they don't take up physical space and are theoretically infinite in supply. Compared to the physical product (such as a CD or vinyl record), there's a lot of convenience.

Yet the record industries still persist in selling their downloads at equivalent prices to the CD. They get a bigger margin, refusing to pass on any of the cost savings to the consumer.

Let's not forget the record industry tried to ban MP3 players back in 1999, so I don't have sympathy for the wailing dinosaurs. Imagine if they got their way! We know they spent most of the noughties coming up with rival formats, all of them were cumbersome and highly restrictive. No wonder they failed!

However, one small victory for the record industry is that Peter Mandelson recently holidayed with record boss David Geffen. And just by pure "coincidence", Mandelson later decided to put forward a law forcing all UK ISPs to regulate what you look at online, in the interests of copyright.

Those of you who've read this blog will know how I exposed Lily Allen for her copyright-infringement, along with Lily's response to me falling flat on its face.

Well, last week I discovered that Peter Mandelson has followed in Lily's footsteps as a copyright hypocrite. Again, I reported the story to techdirt.com, who are always keen to showcase the "do as I say, not as I do" arrogance of politicians and musicians who insist copyright should be stronger, despite masses of economic studies showing that lighter copyright laws benefit both publishers, creators and consumers alike.

My local MP is Peter Bone from the Conservative Party. In the run up to the Digital Economy Bill being debated (and I use that term loosely), various online compaigns were set up encouraging us to contact our local MP.

Thanks to the wonderful TheyWorkForYou.com website, it's easy to write a letter to Peter Bone. As my friends know, I'm not exactly a fan of the Conservatives, but I did vote Tory in protest at Labour's support of the ongoing illegal and unethical wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There you have it, I'm admitting to having voted Tory. (Well, in the ward I lived in at the time, it was just Labour vs Conservative, no other options.)

I confess to having not known much about Peter before. I do recall my friend Kat Fiction a few years back, stating her shock at how the Tories prepared an election leaflet for Mr Bone, using the fact he resembled then-England-manager Sven Goran-Eriksson as a positive campaign point.

Oh hang on, there is something quite disturbing about Peter Bone. He opposed the minimum wage, and continues to oppose it. Such was his conviction that Peter Bone paid just 87p-an-hour to one of his workers back in 1995. "The minimum wage would condemn hundreds of thousands to the dole queue", he was quoted as saying.

However, when it comes to Peter Bone employing his wife, he thinks she deserves £40,000 a year.

So, should I have anything to do with this hypocritical charlatan? Something else stirred the memory banks. Drinking buddy Richard Lockwood wrote to to ask why the MP supported the laughable bunkum known as 'homeopathy', which would clearly be a waste of NHS money. The reply he got back from Peter Bone was, er, minimal to say the least.

Still, I felt so strongly about the Digital Economy Bill (and still do), that I decided to write to Peter Bone and see where it would take me. It wouldn't matter if I didn't like the man, what would matter is him speaking against it. After all, a lot of businesses in Wellingborough do depend on an open web to do commerce. I'm affected by any such changes, being a local web-designer, web-programmer and SEO consultant.

A look at Peter Bone's voting record shows some signs of a soul. He wanted an investigation into the Iraq war, voted against the government's draconian 'anti-terror' laws and is heavily against ID cards. Pretty commendable, I have to say.

However, with his stance against gay equal rights, he shows himself up as an embarrassing social dinosaur, no better than the US politicians who denied civil rights for black people. The Conservatives try to position themselves as a modern party, but the homophobia isn't far away.

Still, I announced my intention to write to Peter Bone, urging him to vote against the Digital Economy Bill, and a few of my friends followed my lead. I even got a reply:

One of my key roles as your representative in Parliament is to listen to my constituents and campaign on your behalf - in fact, this is the whole philosophy behind my "Listening to Wellingborough and Rushden" campaign.

You have raised an important issue and I have accordingly forwarded it onto the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport so that the government can fully take your opinions into account. I have also requested a response from the Department and I will, of course, forward on to you any that I may receive.

Sounding very nice indeed. Unfortunately, Peter Bone could not be bothered to turn up to the second reading of the bill. Actually, to be fair, 95% of MPs - our so-called 'public servants' - also could not be bothered to attend this essentially important debate.

And thus, we entered the next step as the technically-illiterate MPs present outnumbered those who actually understood the importance of a free internet for the UK's economy.

Yeah, cheers Peter Bone. Well done for your apathy. Well done for ignoring such an important issue. Obviously sitting in a £15k-a-year rented flat paid for by us taxpayers was a much better option?

I wrote back, airing my disappointments on his lack of action, and my intentions to blog about his failure to represent his constituents' views. His response:

Thank you for your e-mail. You will know that I have one of the best voting
records of any Conservative Member of Parliament and my attendance in the
House of Commons is second to none. You will also know that I fully support
the Conservative Party on the Digital Economy Bill. I am sure you will also
appreciate that sometimes Members of Parliament have to be in their
constituency and not in the Palace of Westminster. Unfortunately, Members
of Parliament are not able to be in two places at once.

With regards to your attack on me for being anti-gay-rights, you are
entitled to your opinion, but it is not correct. You may be interested to
hear that I was recently voted by Liberal Democratic Voice to be one of the
62 most Liberal non-Lib Dem MPs.

The "you are entitled to your opinion" statement is such a poor cop-out. A terrible cliche that is a verbal white flag. It signifies the fear of his old-fashioned views being held up to rationality.

In a similar fashion, he states that he supports the Bill (Conservatives back it) yet will not even dare discuss why he supports it.

I'd like to put it to this pauper-wage-loving technically-illiterate gay-despising taxpayer-money-wasting waste-of-space that he dare not enter into any debate, because he knows he will lose. He's backing whatever the Conservative Party say, because that's his easy career - claiming huge expenses from hard working people, denying them rights, imposing censorship and wishing he could cut their wages to a fraction of what they are.

Naturally, I won't be voting for this knowledge-lacking tosswit, and since his views have been spread via Facebook, other locals agree...

"I'm not voting for that useless twat, who didn't have the honesty to admit, on his first reply that he had no intention of voting against the bill."

"it is HIS JOB to be entitled to MY opinion. So the oily, lazy waste of space can drop dead."

"I've emailed him 6 times. Had 3 responses, two of which were pretty much stock letters and the third was a little more detailed, but boiled down to "I'll be talking to the secretary of state about it". My question was explicitly about his behaviour, nothing to do with the government or anyone else.

Now, my understanding is that an MP is supposed to represent their constituents. Ignoring them is not representation.... See more

I want him gone, unless he learns to
1) Read
2) Turn up on debates that matter instead of the pointless ones that just bump up his numbers"

"make all the candidates in a constituency work as a waiter in a 'Frankie n Bennys' for a month....whoever gets the most tips in that time obviously has the right work ethic and becomes the MP.....shimples!!"

"if they could be in two places at once they'd be claiming expenses for both"

To conclude, I've just realised why Peter Bone is in favour of a law that censors the web.

If you are a UK music fan, follow these instructions

Anybody who has ever gritted their teeth at the third play of a tedious James Blunt song during their working day will know how feeble commercial radio is for those who value music with passion, soul and sincerity.

If you're a fan of heavy rock, drum 'n' bass, punk, indie, reggae, ska, hard dance, electronica, funky house, Northern soul, blues, metal, etc, you will be all too familiar with the agony of Groundhog FM - the nightmare that is some witless local DJ churning out the same old tracks you heard yesterday, in between double-glazing adverts and his own 'in the newspapers today...' spiel.

The fact these charismaphobes are allowed near a microphone and feel no shame in inflicting the likes of Phil Collins, Dido and Bon Jovi on an entire county surely must be in breach of the Geneva Convention.

I'm no music snob, I do actually like plenty of mainstream music, quite a lot of it new. I admire the production behind Girls Aloud, I appreciate the simplistic exuberance of the Black Eyed Peas, and the punchy sound of Lily Allen.

However, there are times when the Clash's 'I Fought The Law' needs to be pelted out full blast. Times when the severely underrated M.I.A. should be on the airwaves, times when some full-on skanking from Toots And The Maytals can brighten an evening, and times when a long-forgotten Elastica track can stick a smile on your face.

To satisfy such desires, I've always recommended BBC 6 Music, a station that plays tracks that other broadcasters don't touch. From Craig Charles' Funk Show to the heart-warming surreal musings of Adam and Joe, with the wit and whimsy of Andrew Collins, this station is a pure gem, a rare showcase for esoteric tuneage.

You may not have heard of it (until recently) as it's stuck in the wastelands of DAB. According to the BBC's own surveys, the station has a mere 20% awareness among adults. I was surprised it was as high as that, as the Beeb have never done a good job of promoting 6music.

In the news today of course, BBC director general Mark Thompson has announced his intention to axe BBC 6 Music along with BBC Asian Network. The timing of which has to be brought into question, as a Conservative government is likely to be established soon. It seems like a sacrificial lamb offering.

Also, the BBC are continually blasted by the right-wing press for their dominance in mainstream media. The criticism is a curious parodox which is rarely questioned. One line is "you're doing too well, you're harming the business of your commercial rivals", and the other line is "incredibly low ratings, it should be axed". The idiots who spew out this bile, from the likes of bigot Richard Littlejohn and the ironically-surnamed Jon Gaunt, do so without acknowledging their own spectacular broadcasting failures.

Naturally, music lovers are starting petitions, Facebook groups, and even a flashmob to prevent the closure of 6music.

Whilst these are all very well and good, nothing can be going to the Powers That Be. In this case, the BBC Trust. The news may scream "BBC axes radio stations", but actually it's only a proposal there is time to save it.

Please e-mail the BBC Trust at srconsultation@bbc.co.uk to air your support of BBC 6music. Without significant recognition of this quality station, we could lose it at the end of 2011. BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons has admitted if "there's massive public concern that we need to take account of then we will go back to the director general to rethink the strategy before it's approved".

If an e-mail is inconvenient for you to write, you can always submit your views in the online consultation from the BBC Trust, all listeners and viewers invited to take part before 25th May, that also goes for the e-mails.

With that, I reproduce below the e-mail I sent.
Edit: As my friend Nic says in the comments to this blog entry, don't copy-and-paste this, just let it inspire you. Organisations don't look fondly on lots of people sending the same thing in!:

Dear BBC Trust,

I'm stunned at the proposals to close down digital radio stations 6music and Asian Network. The Director General believes 6music is competing too closely with commercial offerings and is too expensive to run, yet nothing could be further from the truth.

Within your established national portfolio of stations, 6music is easily the most unique. The intelligence, passion and eclectic choices in music - past and current - makes 6music an astonishing and well loved arena for people whose tastes are simply not served by any competing broadcaster.

The same cannot be said for many of your other digital services. BBC Three is currently a poor performer that's in the shadow of E4 and ITV2. Shows such as 'Joe Swash: I Believe In Ghosts' and 'My Man Boobs And Me' are cheap tawdry tabloid fare which has little appeal to its target audience.

I've also never understood why the BBC dedicate two channels for children's television. I'm not questioning the quality of CBBC or CBeebies, which are a breath of fresh air in comparison to commercial rivals' offerings (simply toy adverts masquerading as cartoons), yet I feel you could preserve costs by placing the pre-school output (CBeebies) during times when the usual CBBC audience are supposed to be attending school. The extra bandwidth saved could be used for a second HD service.

Of course, my issue is with the plans to decimate your digital radio services under the questionable notion that there's a feeling of overreaching into areas that are normally the preserve of commercial radio.

The irony is that your analogue-based stations have long been on commercial radio's doorsteps.

Global's Heart are moving in to mirror Radio 2, and judging by significant audience increases, it's up to the Beeb to make the next move. Radio 3 of course has a distinct commercial competitor in Classic FM, its popularity eclipsing your offering. Radio 5 thankfully outdoes the rather downmarket talkSPORT, but both chase the same audience.

BBC 6music costs just £9 million a year to run. Out of the TV License fee income of £4.6 billion, I would say that represents extremely good value for money. I only wish I could say the same for BBC Three, costing £115 million a year, with very few 'hits' to date.

The nearest commercial station to 6music? I feel embarrassed at even mentioning Xfm or Absolute Radio, two stations that play token 'alternative and indie' songs in daytime only if they've become big chart breakthroughs. They're usually overplayed and when it's a new band, it's just their one song they'll play.

Xfm's commitments to the listener are laughable. DJs have been made redundant in favour of an automated playlist that is narrow, safe and repetitive. It's no surprise that such DJs - Lauren Laverne, Shaun Keaveney, Guy Garvey, Adam and Joe, Stephen Merchant, etc - have found homes at 6music and have offered better shows as a result.

Absolute Radio's diet of soft rock and anthemic pop, with a prohibition on dance and hip-hop, is an anathema to the tastes of 6music listeners. There is simply no room for esoteric choices in obscure music when commercial interests have to be served.

Mark Thompson also states "low audience awareness" for 6music, yet this is down to the lack of promotion the station gets. BBC 1Xtra is continuously plugged on Radio 1 throughout the day, yet 6music (which has massive crossover appeal with Radio 1 listeners) is never mentioned. I'm not surprised at low figures.

If the cuts are allowed to go ahead, it would not just make a mockery of the BBC's public service commitments, it also devalues DAB as a platform, something which the BBC have been pioneers in introducing to the UK.

Need I remind you that commercial ventures with DAB have been predictable failures? On the television side of things, I'm sure we're familiar on how Granada and Carlton spectacularly let down all those who bought ON Digital/ITV Digital boxes, and it to the BBC's credit that it founded Freeview, which is now a highly acclaimed platform, serving as the most popular method of digital television for UK viewers.

With so much simulcasting of existing analogue stations, DAB is not a highly attractive offering, yet the BBC have done well to provide 1Xtra, 5Live, 6Music, Radio 7 and Asian Network. In wide swathes of provincial Britain, these are the only stations setting the platform apart from standard FM/AM radio. You have made DAB viable for me, in spite of commercial broadcasters fleeing the platform.

For the BBC's continued survival, it is important to support low-cost services which have a passionate audience. It's unquestionable value for the license payer and is true commitment to underserved audiences. I could not think of anything more 'BBC-esque' than what 6music does.

More people listen to 6music than buy the Times newspaper. Even with the station treated like a red-headed stepchild by the Corporation, its listener figures are actually commendable.

The BBC wisely paid tribute when John Peel died, a man whose ethos is represented by 6music. Why undo all that work by closing down a station due to questionable political pressure from vendetta-based campaigns run by press barons who wish the BBC quashed so they can monopolise the market for news?

I know this is going to be one of many thousands of emails sent to you on the subject of 6music, which simply reinforces why the station should be kept and hopefully, promoted!

Yours faithfully

Peter Thomas.

Lily Allen's delete key doesn't work

Good news for all of those following the Lily Allen vs Techdirt debacle. We've managed to get Lily to change her mind. Not fully, but she has made a step in the right direction, and TechDirt attributes this to my exposure of her mixtape MP3s.

TechDirt's latest post on the ska popstress explains it very well, citing a Times article published this morning, with the headline Blow for music industry as Lily Allen says Peter Mandelson's plans too draconian.

Now that's the kind of thing I like to see. Not perfect, as the 100+ group of artists want bandwidth cut down for suspected infringers to a trickle. Nobody in the FAC or any other musician or producer has ever stated how they can be 100% sure they will be targeting illegal downloaders.

As a web designer, programmer and creative worker with over 20 years experience in IT, I can confidently state it's impossible to grab all illegal downloaders. If it were possible, we'd have rounded up spammers by now. Any legislation against internet filesharing will just drive it to a point where it's encrypted all time (see VPN) , practically untraceable, people will just swap MP3s on memory sticks, mobile phones and portable hard drives. Actually, a lot of folk do that frequently aready!

Sadly, a lot of the mainstream press were concentrating on Lily's announcement to quit pop music. This was one the last things Lily said on her pro-copyright blog before it got deleted, and I honestly believe it was another of her media stunts, designed to take attention away from the fact she distributed music illegally. Fortunately, not all media outlets are convinced, as it's not the first time Lily has stated she's quitting music. The NME and even The Sun poured cynicism on this announcement, but it did the trick for her, by eclipsing the revelation of her mixtape MP3s still being online.

However, I did discover last night that the MP3s were now deleted. These were the URLs you could obtain them from...
http://www.lilyallenmusic.com/music/demos/5geuj0iedc/MyFirstMixtape.mp3
http://www.lilyallenmusic.com/music/demos/csd23dsms7/LilyAllenMixTape2.mp3

Whether it was Lily or an EMI staffer who took down those links, there's one thing they should learn. The internet doesn't really forget anything. Those MP3s can and will resurface elsewhere, and I was contacted today with new URLs for these (admittedly very good) music compilations:
http://rapidshare.com/files/284888793/MyFirstMixtape.mp3
http://rapidshare.com/files/284895983/LilyAllenMixTape2.mp3

This does relate to Lily's response aimed at me yesterday...

Anyway the snippets of songs you hear on those mixtapes are about 30 seconds to 1 minute in length,

I said this wasn't true, and here's the proof. Here's the tracklistings with my timings:

Lily's First Mixtape
LDN - Lily Allen (2.5 mins, admittedly Dizzee's beats come in after 1 min)
Fix Up Look Sharp - Dizzee Rascal (1.5 mins, not counting earlier beats)
Dub Be Good To Me - Beats International (over 2.5 mins)
Smile - Lily Allen (3 mins)
The Potion - Ludacris (over 2.5 mins)
Popshots - Premier (over 2.5 mins)
taxi fare - Mr Vegas (over 1 min)
Who Say Meh Dun - Cutty Ranks (over 3 mins)
She Taught Me How To Yodel - Kenny Roberts (over 1 min)
Born On The Bayou - Creedance Clearwater (over 1.5 min)
Get Out My Life Woman - Lee Dorsey (1.5 min)
Stay With Me - Rod Stewart (3 mins)
Up The Junction - Squeeze (3 mins)
Knock 'Em Out - Lily Allen (over 2.5 mins)
Go DJ - Jammin (Zinc) (repeated samples)
Drifting - Jammin (Zinc) (over 1 min)
Oi - More Fire Crew (over 2.5 mins)
Friday Night Saturday Morning - The Specials (2.5 mins)
Who's The Bad Man - Dee Patten (over 1 min)
Joe Le Taxi - Vanessa Paradis (3 mins)
Silly Games - Janet Kay (over 2 mins)
Cheryl Tweedy - Lily Allen (3 mins)
Incredible - M-Beat featuring General Levy (over 3.5 mins)

Lily's Second Mixtape
Nan You're A Window Shopper - Lily Allen (over 2 mins)
Put You On The Game - The Game (2 mins)
Only Love Can Break Your Heart - St Entienne (2.5 mins)
Wrigleys - Red Rat (over 1.5 mins)
Ready She Ready - Tubby T (over 2 mins)
Shake Your Money Maker - Black Grape (2 mins)
Dirt Off Your Shoulder - Jay-Z (over 3 mins)
Truth - Lily Allen (over 2.5 mins)
Sweet Love - Y2K (over 2.5 mins)
Soul Survivor Remix - Young Jeezy feat Akon, Shabba Ranks, Vybz Kartel & Sizzla (over 2 mins)
Oh My God (Kaiser Chiefs cover) - Mark Ronson featuring Lily Allen (over 3 mins)
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane (over 2 mins)
Cosmic Dancer - T-Rex (3 mins)
(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me - Sandie Shaw (over 2 mins)
Badman Forward Badman Pull Up - Ding Dong (1.5 min)
Cubik - 808 State (2.5 mins)
Alfie - Lily Allen (over 2 mins)
Do As I say - Sia (over 3 mins)
Friday Night - Lily Allen (over 2.5 mins)
Never Let You Go - Tina Moore (over 1 min)
I Luv U - Dizzee Rascal (over 2 mins)
Gangsters - The Specials (over 2 mins)
On A Ragga Tip - SL2 (over 3 mins)
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks (over 3 mins)

Onto Lily's next lie about these MP3s...

i made those mixtapes 5 years ago

Hold on a sec, I got the tracklisting for the first one off Lily's MySpace blog (which she admits she personally runs), dated in Jan 2006. That ain't five years ago, it's more recent than that.

And on that very blog, what do I see on March 2006?

What the fuck ? my shit is on Limewire , you naughty people . Oh well , I haven't got a problem with it , so long as a few of you buy the album

Thank you Lily! Deep down, you know you get the point. One final thing about the blog that was deleted...

i've shut down the blog, the abuse was getting too much.

As TechDirt stated, yes, there were childish and abusive comments (though having listened to the lyrics of Nan You're A Window Shopper on the second mixtape, this is clearly a case of glass houses and rocks), but they did fade away, and more intelligent comments were coming through, almost all of them critical of Lily's pro-record-label stance, with articulate backing and reasonable questioning.

Google's normally trustworthy Cache can't even revive the blog, but luckily I've got a tab open on one of the final pages, on the NME story about Lily and Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, showing some of the recent comments aimed at Lily. Have a read through and see if any of this is "abuse", because I don't think it is...

Planespotter said...

lol, what a bad piece of Jounalism that piece is. Big banner headline of "I agree with Lily Allen on file-sharing" followed by a chunk of text that completely contradicts that opening statement!

Lily wants the government to legislate ISPs to disconnect file-sharers (who are downloading and uploading, thats how file sharing works)

Ed completely disagrees with that proposal, Ed, rightly believes, that the system needs to change, that prices need to fall, new concepts of distribution need to come into play and that YOU have to enage with your fans.

luke said...

"Every generation has a different method," said Radiohead guitarist and FAC Board of Directors member Ed O'Brien. "File sharing is like a sampler, like taping your mate's music."

http://pitchfork.com/news/36545-lily-allen-tangles-with-radiohead-over-illegal-file-sharing/

nuno miranda ribeiro said...

http://www.last.fm/music/Lily+Allen

You have, to this minute, 25,752,726 plays of your songs in Last.fm.

But in the top 15 of your most listened to songs, only one, "Smile", can be listened to. Do you expect people to click on the "buy it" button before listening?

How do you expect people like me, that do not have any CD or ilegal files of your songs, to listen to your work?

See other artists, smaller than you (and let me tell you 25 million in Last.fm is huge, not small), I'll find an example.

Oneida (one of the best rock bands ever, mixing vintage synthesizers with Sonic Youth like guitars):
http://www.last.fm/music/Oneida

They only have 502,540 plays in Last.fm. And that is very little in Last.fm (some portuguese bands there are only known in Portugal have more than that, oh, and there are only 10 million portuguese).

Look at Oneida's top 15! Only one song is not available to be listened, all other 14 songs are.

So, you, your record company or both think that if you don't let people listen to your songs, they will be forced to buy it. Well, I never downloaded your songs, and I don't think I will ever buy your CD's.

With Oneida it's another thing.
And they are incredibly smaller than you (only in cash flow, not in musicallity).

I would love to hear what Oneida members have to say about your claims on file-sharing.

Prodge said...

Sorry Lily, this campaign is simply not working for you at all. I love your music, I liked your attitude until now... where far from the fresh-faced ska-tinged rebel you once were, you're now a puppet of the establishment.

When you're standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Gary Barlow, James Blunt and Tim Rice-Oxley, you're not on the side of music lovers.

Your anti-piracy blog has been a big disaster from the beginning. You support the unethical policies of Lord Mandelson - a minister whose own corruption and seen him twice booted out of office - and you probably haven't even realised you fall afoul of them.

Mandelson supports the idea that users should be CUT OFF from the internet if they are ACCUSED 3 times by the record industry. Not proven of guilt, just merely accused. Very Orwellian.

It's astonishing to think that you issued a well-thought-out song against George W Bush on your latest album, but when it comes to seeking a profit, you ape his idea of justice.

I'm astonished Mick Jones got you, of all people, to cover a Clash song. Listen to yourself, do you think that Joe Strummer, if he were alive today, would champion your Elton-John-backed cause of making luddite record labels richer?

File-sharing is going to happen anyway. Attempting to prevent it is like opening up a cocktail umbrella to shield yourself from a tsunami.

Fine, bring laws in to cut off filesharers. You know what will happen? They'll move even faster to encrypted technologies, where the record industry won't have a clue who is uploading what. Need I mention VPN? (Google it, or look on Wikipedia - it's your nightmare.)

Musicians expecting a pension from selling overpriced plastic discs of their past work have to wake up and smell the coffee. That era is OVER. Why even join the ranks of the dinosaurs who are in that club?

Embrace filesharing, and enjoy the attention. Everyone knows that live gigs are where you make the money anyway. You admitted to Q magazine that you hardly make money from album sales. Stand by your words, and stop siding with conveyor-belt-musak stars like Gary Barlow.

Already in your blog, YOU have been caught taking website content without permission...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090922/0310156273.shtml
...and you did it a further two times when you put up newspaper scans in the PRESS COVERAGE entry.

Three strikes of copyright infringement, eh? Looks like Mandelson should cut off your internet access, Lily.

sonic said...

Everyone seems to be losing sight of the facts. All the studies on file sharing agree that it is only responsible (if at all) for a tiny proportion of the reduction of sales in the music industry. You can find the studies on-line please read them yourself!!!

Some studies even suggest that file sharing has a positive impact. The most damming report only suggests that file sharing is responsible for 30% reduction in sales ( while most studies suggest the impact is only 5%). So the studies suggest that over 70% of the decline in the music industry (possibly up to 100%) is due to other factors.

The industry is in decline, jobs will be lost -Fact-. Nothing Lily or anyone else is doing will prevent that. Clamping down on file sharing isn’t going to save them as file sharing isn’t responsible for the majority of the decline in the industry.

Wasting tax payers money on legislation which will only have a tiny impact on sales would harm the industry even more. Higher public spending + more expensive internet access = less money in Joe publics pocket and less record sales.

I would suggest that it might be an idea to address whatever it is which is causing the majority of the decline in sales??? Anyone have any ideas what may be causing this? What can be done about it?

Timothy said...

Attenion: Lily, guys, girls, children, parents, adults - Look, this is really, REALLY simple. If pirating were "destroying the music industry", why in the world is PRS's own study showing that the UK music industry is GROWING!
http://www.prsformusic.com/creators/news/research/Documents/Will%20Page%20and%20Chris%20Carey%20(2009)%20Adding%20Up%20The%20Music%20Industry%20for%202008.pdf

GROWING, guys. This smokescreen of pirating that the labels, who are the ONLY ones effected negatively by piratng (except when the pass those negative effects onto the artists) is being used to draw MORE money out of artists and the curtail the rights of the public.

This is REALLY easy to figure out folks. Pirating has NEVER been a war on artists, or the music industry. It is a war on what is an obsolete business model trying to be perpetuated by record labels that need to understand that their job now is essentially to be a PR firm. Distribution has been taken care of by the P2P networks.

Prodge said...

Hey, Lily, how come I have EVIDENCE of YOU distributing major artist's music without their permission?

Check out this 2006 blog posting, everyone...
http://whatbecameofthelikelybroads.blogspot.com/2006/08/finally-lily-allen-mixtape-2.html

Can't be true, can it? Surely Lily isn't giving out music by the Kinks, T-Rex, The Specials, Dizzee Rascal, etc? (Good taste btw, I have to admit that).

Well, check the link out in the entry. It's on the lilyallenmusic.com domain. That's her EMI-funded website.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we have caught Lily Allen in the act of MUSIC PIRACY. She's even more of a hypocrite than ever before!

Don't worry Lily, as you say in the title of your latest album... Everyone's At It!

Rob said...

Why oh why do people continually miss the point... it amazes me.

Legislation isn't the answer, has legislation worked for illegal drug use? has it worked taking knives and guns off the street? The simple answer is NO.

What are the root causes, find them out, embrace the technology and mold it so that not only do people get what they want but also so that you make a profit from it....

Criminalising millions of people isn't the way forward, diconnecting mum and dad from the internet 'cos their 13 year old downloaded a Sugarbabes single on bittorrent isn't the way.

sonic said...

http://whatbecameofthelikelybroads.blogspot.com/2006/08/finally-lily-allen-mixtape-2.html

So are we saying Lily has been giving away other peoples music for free in order to promote her own music? Is this true? If so it puts her on pretty shaky ground morally, Its almost file sharing for profit. What do the artist whose music she was giving away for free think about this?

Come to think of it hasn't Mark Ronson put out a load of mixes as well? Has he been paying the artists whose music he`s been giving away?

blazinbadzula said...

I don't pirate music anymore simply because I don't want to get sued for millions of dollars for stealing $20 worth of music. I think if record companies make singles cheaper or some up with some affordable plan for people who will buy instead of steal music. I only buy CDs if the music is good or if I'm a big fan of theirs (Amy Winehouse for example). I think record companies and musicians should stop being so greedy and don't think you guys are above us. After all, we are the ones who make your paychecks.

wideawakewesley said...

Radiohead talk sense, education, better distribution systems, better pricing and incentives are all much better ways to fight against duplication and illegal distribution of music. Look at the fantastic success Spotify is having with an ad supported model. Their users are going legal in huge numbers because the distribution system and pricing are the best legal system that's been devised to date. Once there is competition in that space, you'll see even greater innovation that will attract even more customers and provide an even better experience.

nattiel8522 said...

Although I understand your stance and sympathise with the struggles of emerging artists, I can not for the life of me understand why you would want to alienate us, the consumer, in this way. I think that to place the blame at our door and not at that of the people that have the power to make real change, the music industry is completely unfair. And here’s why:

1. If we consider the recent U2 tour which it has been reported as the most expensive ever, you can surely understand how we the consumer/music fan struggle to sympathise too heavily with the music industry. To me this expense, during the current economic crisis, is vulgar and just proves how detached artists have become from the consumer. I understand that the financial structure of touring differs to that of recording and producing music, but I also apply this argument to the cost of producing music videos and promoting acts etc. While my business struggles to survive and I count every single penny, all I see are expensive big budget videos on my screen and label clad ‘stars’ in the pages of magazines. Surely you can understand that when bombarded with these images I find it hard to accept that it is my downloading that is the crux of the problem the industry faces.

2. We are loyal to you and are supportive of you. If some of you weren’t so detached from the people who give you your success and those who enable you to make a career out of the one thing you love then maybe you would begin to understand that it is not us that you should be joining forces against but is the companies that have made no attempt to meet us somewhere in the middle. Instead I feel that the music industry has ripped off the consumer for years, and even when faced with such a problem makes no attempt to compromise.

3. Katherine Monaco of the Sirens wrote that they ‘discovered at least 20,000 examples of illegal downloading’ of their single. There seems to be an assumption throughout this debate that those who download have done so instead of buying and so resulting in loss of revenue for the act. Who is to say that all or even some of those 20,000 examples would have gone out to buy the single? It is my experience and the experience of those around me that we download things that we would not go out and buy, thus supporting the argument that downloading does diversify the listener which can only ever be a good thing for any act.

It seems that the industry is completely detached from the consumer, the fan, technology and struggles that the world is facing. If the music biz looked inward you and realised that the music industry, like any other industry relies on consumer confidence and this is what is missing. Just because something is available for free doesn’t mean that we will automatically take it. If that were true then bottle water wouldn’t be one of the biggest selling drinks.

So, Lily and your army, I ask you to turn to your industry partners and direct your completely justified concerns to those in real power to make the changes needed and stop laying the blame at our door!......If you dare!

Wi_ngo said...

What Prodge, Sonic and others have pointed out is like the ultimate irony of all freaking time. Lily herself has in the past mass-distributed copyrighted works of dozens of artists to promote herself. (As of now - these 'mixtapes' are still available, actually.)

So, should we cut off Lily's internet, or just fine her a couple of million dollars?

She is just as guilty of 'copyright infringement' as anyone who has been prosecuted for it, if not more so. ON AN EMI-SPONSORED WEBSITE, no less.

Wake up, Lily dear. Either you are a colossal hypocrite, or your are just simply doing the same thing that the 'criminals' you seek to punish are doing - 'violating copyright' by just using the internet and not doing anything intentionally malicious or criminal.

Angel said...

I just don't understand how cutting off someone's internet is going to make them buy your stuff?? This makes no sense to me.

I'm more than willing to pay money for good music, But why can't the industry come into the 21st century and realize that their business models are dated?

The internet is not the enemy it's a new way of distributing things. Make your music/movies/software...etc..etc...etc. reasonably priced and people will buy it, plain and simple.

By the way how come nobody ever got fined $9.2 Million dollars for borrowing an LP, CD, or Tape and making a recording of it?

Phe-eew... yes, I quoted two of my own comments, that's my ego at work (and I realise I got her album title wrong!) but you can see that what I said about the hypocrisy, along with Sonic's viewpoints and the TechDirt articles, these were the catalyst on getting Lily to re-think her position.

And you know what? I'm actually slowly warming to her again. Not just because she used 808 State's awesome Cubik on that second mixtape...

Her second latest tweet is a BBC News URL that refers to her TechDirt/mixtape copyright infringement incidents. I'm glad it's permeating into music fans' knowledge.

Her newest tweet is a response to @upstartblogger, who has found himself unfairly targetted by EMI's legal team.

@upstartblogger (or Ashley Morgan as he's called outside of Twitter) claims to have some inside information from an EMI insider, and this caught Lily's eye, resulting in Lily's newest tweet, which seems to be an offer to contact him about how EMI are apparently conducting an underhand campaign against him. Could this be an olive branch? Ashley responded in a civil manner, meeting Lily's request, hope it all smooths out the nasty legal trouble, and I really hope this has been an education for Lily. Don't piss off your customers.

Update: The @upstartblogger thing has resulted in Ashley removing his content. He insists it's not a conspiracy. This is his explanation.

Lily Allen: My Part In Her Downfall

So, I get into an argument on the internet - nothing new there - but this one ends up as worldwide news, and what seems to be the end of a pop star's career.

It's been about 24 hours since I sent an e-mail to an influential website which has seen Lily Allen called out for being a hypocritical lying music pirate. This morning, Lily responded to my revelation with a factually inaccurate statement.

I'll have to explain this one in full. I'm a huge fan of TechDirt.com - a technology news-and-commentary blog that keeps us geeks up-to-date on how the digital revolution is ripping up the rulebook, and how luddites continually strive to pass backward outdated laws to keep things the same. Naturally, the articles are strongly against persecution of P2P filesharers.

But this is no pro-piracy blog that offers "l33t nu moviez and albumz". TechDirt is simply acting as the messenger boy, pointing out the old ways of selling overpriced plastic shiny discs are over, and that the record industry should not fight digital, but embrace it, accepting that the infinite supply of MP3 should really drive down the price of recorded music.

There's no point in trying to stuff the genie in the bottle. Even the most dense of computer users knows where the Pirate Bay is. DRM - the unwanted protection scheme on some CDs and DVDs - has been nothing but a huge disaster for the media industry, causing legitimate customers to complain about their purchases not playing on various equipment. Treating the very people who pay your wages as potential thieves is never going to work, and yet, the pirates have the last laugh by offering the same media in a superior format - free of all hassle and easily copiable, just like we've always had in the past.

Besides, how is copying music equal to "theft"? Pro-copyright lobbyists always insist it is "stealing", and I'm sure we've seen that patronising "you wouldn't steal a car" trailer at cinemas and on DVDs.

Thing is, it's completely false. A copy of something is not theft, has never been theft, and never will be theft. Even the law stipulates it is different to theft.

If I nick your car, you don't have a car any more. If I sat outside your house and somehow made a 100% exact copy of your car, you wouldn't be deprived of anything. No crime committed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we should download copies of all music out there just because we can. I go to gigs, I go to festivals, I certainly put my fair share in. I used to be very anti-filesharing about 10 years ago.

After having seen the way the record industry has been reacting to filesharers, and, through having worked for a couple of labels and befriending quite a few artists, I've learnt just how much mark-up there is to the labels and how bands just get ripped off.

It doesn't have to be this way. The real money is in live performance and genuinely scarce goods. CD singles and music videos have always been a loss-leader anyway, they have since before the internet was in nappies.

I am totally not convinced about the piracy fearmongering from famous people who are clearly not educated in the subject. I'm sick of it, that's why I did something about it.

Lord Peter Mandelson - the non-elected government minister who twice had to resign because of his financial scandals - is proposing a disgusting law that criminalises almost every internet user in the UK, usng a guilty-before-proven-innocent basis.

It sickened me to see Lily Allen backing such a terrible Orwellian policy. On top of this, she cited support from the likes of James Blunt, Elton John and Take That's Gary Barlow. That's right, the big names she has on her side consist of a guy whose only positive contribution to society is a new piece of Cockney rhyming slang based on his name, a dreary ballad performer who once stated the internet should be shut down for five years and the songwriter for Steps. If filesharing didn't look good before, it sure does now!

Not that this is good enough for Lily Allen, who this week, launched her own blog dedicated to fighting digital piracy and slurring filesharers as "thieves".

This has been nothing short of a disaster for the feisty ska-tinged popstrel. With the mundane and moribund queueing up to slap her on the back, music fans started questioning her stance. The comments on her blog were filled with criticism.

On Monday, the following report about rapper 50 Cent appeared on her blog:

Famed rapper 50 Cent (Curtis Jackson) was apparently on CNBC recently talking about his "business acumen." I have to admit that having three different people all trying to interview him at once is rather annoying -- as they almost never let him complete a thought. However, when they ask him about piracy, and whether or not it makes him angry (around 2 minutes), he responds that: he sees it as a part of the marketing of a musician, because "the people who didn't purchase the material, they end up at the concert." He says that people can fall in love with the music either way, and then they'll go to concerts. He notes that you can't stop piracy either way, so why try to fight it? He also talks about other business opportunities for musicians.

this is particularly selfish in my view, he seems to only be thinking of how piracy effects him. What about the guys that work in the studio and the kids that run around town putting his posters up,the people that designed his artwork, the people that run his website. Is he giving them a cut of his live fee?

Now, that first paragraph - expertly written, and just one of many reasons why filesharing MP3s is actually good for musicians - gave me a sense of deja vu. The second paragraph is obviously Lily's own commentary. You can tell by the patronising tone and logical flaws. But what's particularly galling is... well, the attribution? Who wrote that first paragraph? Ah yes, it was lifted from TechDirt, without permission, despite being copyrighted.

So there we have Lily Allen breaking copyright. I guess that's "strike one" under the Mandelson Regime. Luckily for Lily, Michael Masnick at TechDirt doesn't take copyright infringement as a massive problem, happily reporting on the incident, and the obvious irony surrounding it.

With the attention focused on Lily's infringement, especially as TorrentFreak reported on her copyright hypocrisy, she eventually had to issue attribution...

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/20090914/0348436181.shtml

The insincere tone didn't go down too well, and when she posted two scanned newspaper articles later on, the mocking nature of her critics went into overdrive.

Here's where I come in...

Sick of the way she shamelessly ripped off TechDirt without so much of a linkback or a credit, I did some digging around. I am actually a fan of Lily Allen, although I can't say I like her much as a person any more.

I remember Lily popping up on the radio back in 2005-6, when she was an up-and-coming artist with a rebellious tone and fairly witty and incisive lyrics that compare to some of Jarvis Cocker's best work.

The internet was cited as her way of doing promotion at little cost. She kept up with the then-popular MySpace fad, and she posted 'mixtape' MP3s where her songs would be sandwiched between ska/pop/rave/rock/indie classics...

Wait a second, she did what? Oh yes, she uploaded the digital equivalent of C90 compilations. Beautiful creations, yet copyright-infringing.

Surely these have disappeared into the digital ether by now? Well, no! I reckoned that a few might pop up on places like rapidshare.com.

Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across this blog posting about her second mixtape, with a tracklisting of some pretty damn famous songs, such as:

Dirt Off Your Shoulder - Jay-Z
White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane
Cosmic Dancer - T-Rex
(There's) Always Something There To Remind Me - Sandie Shaw
Gangsters - The Specials
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks

I hovered over the link to the MP3, and I was stunned - it begins with www.lilyallenmusic.com - her official website! Yep, that's where it is hosted, and at time of writing it is still there, along with her first mixtape MP3. That's three strikes now, isn't it?

Well, I did what any decent-thinking citizen would do, and so I e-mailed Peter Mandelson so that her internet connection could be cut off, that freeloading harlot should be burnt alive in oil TechDirt, so that could expose the story.

10 minutes later, and my revelation is on the front page of TechDirt. You have no idea how much my ego expanded at that moment. It was at Kanye West proportions. I had always wanted to submit an exclusive to that site for years, and here I was with my first submission accepted in a near-instant.

It meant even more to me, knowing that Lily herself would actually see it. I hoped she would respond. In the meantime, it was quickly picked up by the P2P supporters at TorrentFreak.

What an embarrassment. Lily Allen exposed as a complete hypocrite and a liar. What would her record label, EMI, make of it? And would we get a response?

In the late morning, my exposure had reached Lily, who blogged about it. Except that I can't link to this blog entry nor can I quote it in full, because she deleted the entire blog within half-an-hour of learning how we caught her red-handed, indulging in copyright infringement.

Luckily, it's TechDirt who are again the heroes, because Michael quotes some of what she said about my dirt-digging.

I've been dying to respond to her, yet have been at work, and busy with the ATVLand.net site so here goes, with Lily first:

i made those mixtapes 5 years ago, i didn't have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry back then...

Yet it worked in your favour, didn't it? Can you honestly tell me that it wasn't a factor in connecting with your fans? They're bloody good mixtapes by the way, so even if you do claim you're quitting music, please continue making them. I'm especially chuffed you stuck in a Specials B-side and 808 State's Cubik. You do note that on the blog that lists the tracks, there are people there commenting on how they're off to buy the music? I don't think anyone lost out, there's certainly no evidence of it.

As your article clearly states , lilyallenmusic.co.uk is an EMI run website, which is exactly why i don't acknowledge it (i think theres a link to it on my myspace(which i do run), thats purely because, my record contract states i cant sell my merchandise online anywhere else on the net . i don't post on there, i dont even look at it. the record company run it.

I can spot a contradiction in that first sentence, but aside from that, you came up with those mixes. You distributed them, and although the recordings from Dizzee Rascal, The Specials and SL2 are legally held by EMI, there quite a few non-EMI artists on there, such as the Kinks. Jay Z and 808 State. Now, what about "the guys that work in the studio and the kids that run around town putting [...] posters up,the people that designed [...] artwork, the people that run [the] website." Are you "giving them a cut" of your live fee?

Think about what you are proposing now. The Lily Allen of 2009 wants to see the Lilly Allen of 2005 prosecuted. That's it. That's the sheer insanity of it all. Would you like some ketchup on that foot of yours?

Anyway the snippets of songs you hear on those mixtapes are about 30 seconds to 1 minute in length, in traditional mixtape style, it is infringement, correct, but it's not my site, it's EMI's.

Lily, you are lying about "song snippets". That second mixtape is exactly one hour long, and contains 19 tracks. A quick bit of maths reveals that splitting 60 minutes in 1/19 gets you 3.16 minutes - that's the mean average of each song. And many are in there practically in full, with the closer - the Kinks' Waterloo Sunset - being 100% complete.

I do like the way you state "traditional mixtape style". Yes, tradition, style - that's what it is about! You know it's been going on for years, we know it's been going on for years. Yet now you've become a bit *cough* richer, you want to criminalise this activity! You're pissing on your very own roots.

The term "sell-out" isn't used as much as it used to be in music fan circles, but right now I'm calling you out as one.

i am not a hypocrite, i don't illegally download music, and i still think unauthorised file sharing is wrong.

It's not about the downloading of music, which is virtually impossible to trace. Record labels go after uploaders, they can see the IP address quite easily when there's a 'supplier'.

You're a total joke to state that filesharing is wrong, because as I have proven, you have indulged in it yourself. This "do as I say, not as I do" attitude is EXACTLY what a hypocrite does. This is what you have become.

Don't worry about filesharing, as to cite a certain album title - Everyone's At It. Including you, Lily.

Regrettably, some of the critical comments on Lily's blog were very juvenile and spiteful. This was cited by Lily as a reason why she deleted the blog. I don't believe that for a second, it's pretty obvious her copyright infringements did her no favours, but I do distance myself from the personal insults hurled at her. Thankfully there were many many viewpoints that ripped apart Lily's argument in a civil manner.

So, Lily deleted the entire blog, and even stated she's quitting music because of piracy.

The story has gone wild. Google News have it on their front page, with at least 140 articles related to it. The Daily Telegraph are reporting it. DigitalSpy are talking about her mixtape piracy.

A Facebook friend of mine urgently wanted my e-mail address, as his friend is an editor of a national music magazine, and I'm to be interviewed about this debacle.

I've had celebrity blogger Perez Hilton e-mailing me with "love it!", though to be fair, he's definitely no fan of the white-trainer'd songstress.

Plenty of my friends are finding it hysterical, that me, some unknown podgy guy with an opinion, has just managed to cause havoc for a well-known A-list pop star. I wonder if she's summoned in for a carpetting at EMI Towers?

To be humble though (I can sometimes manage it), this isn't about me. It's about the power of the internet, the digital democracy. If I didn't report it, someone else would have done. I'm very much in favour of the story continuing to spread.

As it stands, I've had a hand in severely damaging the dinosaurs' pro-copyright campaigning, I am so chuffed at that. I started embracing MP3s 12 years ago, when I ran a fan site about the Prodigy, and ended up on the receiving end of a £500 legal settlement bill from the BPI's solicitors because we had live concert recordings (commercially unavailable ones) online. Despite the fact none of this ever harmed the finances of The Prodigy or XL Recordings - quite the reverse in fact!

So I'm quite happy the record industry is running around like a headless chicken, losing money everywhere because they just cannot satisfy the market with the same old same old. No amount of remastered Beatles albums is going to save the day. Give up on the plastic discs, and concentrate on providing VALUE for the consumer.

If you want further positive reasoning why MP3s should be priced at virtually zero pence, and why record labels should actually gear themselves up as PR services rather than the outdated shifters of CDs, please pop over to TechDirt.com and take their advice on all matters digital.

My thanks to Ryan Lambie for the rather egotistical subject line suggestion!