Thoughts - Music Piracy - More Narcissism?

Lily Allen recently headlined a campaign AGAINST music piracy and, to her surprise, received quite a significant backlash from her "base" decrying her position.

Whilst I feel for Lily's position, I equally support some of the "justifications" often made in favour of piracy. However, I see those arguments in the light of a Gen-X mentality and is formed around the opinion that I want my music my way - so stop trying to shove overpriced CDs down my throat.

Problem is, I'm not sure Lily's base sees this in the same light. Much has been said about the narcissism of Gen-Y and, I'd argue, that the type of piracy that Lily is writing about comes from this "I don't give a shit about you, just give me my free music" mentality. I'd be very surprised if the majority of Gen-Y's have a position on anything that didn't involve themselves - so the usual arguments about "give us better access" or "stop with the crap CDs" won't cut it.

So, the question in my mind is - how does Lily (and the industry) stop this? I would've thought it was pretty obvious - you need to make it about them. Stop talking about all the musicians they're hurting - to be honest, they don't give a flying fuck if Lily goes down tomorrow - their attention span is too small to care. However, would you be better arguing that they're killing off their own ambitions to become muso's? Mmm, probably not a big enough audience on that one.

What about punishment? Threats haven't worked before and trying to nail people doing it is bloody hard - and look at the backlash it yields on the label/artist who tries to prosectute.

No, I suspect the only thing you can do is either:

• Accept the change (and find other ways of growing your revenue base outside of selling "units" or
• Fight back - whenever you find a song listed, start injecting shit into the torrents making them useless. Use technology to fight the technology. It's probably a loosing battle, but at least you'd get some revenge.

Ok, perhaps they're both silly - so here's my real suggestion. Stop selling narcissism in your music, your image and ... well, pretty well everything you do. You see, if anyone says narcissim, it has to be Lily Allen. The "I don't give a shit" persona could well be an epitaph for Gen-Y. Which is unfortunate because her lyrics don't seem to sell the attitude - if anything they speak the opposite. Makes you wonder if she's being sold a particular way?

Anyhow, if people want a different reaction from their punters - then try selling it through the messages they portray in their songs. Get angry about it. Sell different ideals to their people who are attracted to them. God, I'm starting to sound like a religious zealot.

Still, the problem remains that the industry is still stuck in the 60's in respect to how to sells music. Perhaps if artists actually made decent albums? Perhaps if we stopped packaging "Hits Of" albums and forcing people to digest and artists album than selectively picking the pieces they like? Perhaps just writing good songs and selling them differently? How about not producing any CDs (in hard form) but offering electronic copies from shops at a much reduced cost - and any album be they current or old. The capability exists - if I want Led Zepplin 1 - I should be able to walk into any music store and buy it. The problem comes from when it's not there.

Of course, the problem the industry has is, like newspapers, punters have moved on. Either you need to win us back or change.