Lily Allen, Halo 3 ODST

Today’s Guardian reports that Lily Allen’s blog had been removed due to online abuse, but neglects to mention that the abuse was over her own copyright infringement.

Earlier in the day Lily Allen, one of the few younger artists to speak out against online piracy, said she was dropping her public campaign against copyright theft because “the abuse was getting too much”. She had set up a blog “It’s Not Alright” – in reference to her first album Alright, Still – collating artists’ views after her comments that “filesharing is a disaster” for new talent. In its statement last night the FAC, expressed support for Allen and condemned “the vitriol that has been directed at her in recent days”.

Anyone else spot the irony of artists criticising the vitriol directed at, er, copyright thieves? It’s hard to disagree with my esteemed colleague Karl Hodge on this one:

http://bit.ly/4xE2qg – Lily’s blog down, comments gone, her wolf-cry of abuse taken at face value, discussion ends, revisionism begins.

The link he’s included is to The Word magazine, which shouts “misogyny” – even though the abuse was largely on other sites, not Allen’s; the abuse only became intense when she ignored reasonable comments; and the abuse is a fraction of the shit heaped on Lars Ulrich over Napster. As far as I’m aware, Mr Ulrich is not a lady.

It’s pathetic, really: the official story is already that brave copyright fighter Lily Allen had to take down her blog after the nasty internet people called her names, when the real story is that confused copyright infringer Lily Allen deleted her blog in a fit of pique after internet people caught her “stealing” other people’s content.

Fuck’s sake.

Meanwhile, the turkeys have overwhelmingly voted in favour of Christmas. Or rather, the artists have voted in favour of three-strikes against file sharers. This will, of course, mean the end of illegal file sharing and the return of bloated musical profits, and is in no way a Canute-esque stand that won’t change a bloody thing. At least Canute was trying to prove that he *couldn’t* stop the tide.

On a completely different note, Halo 3 ODST is an interesting (flawed) experiment. I don’t think I’ve played a first-person shooter inspired by Rashomon before, and it’s an interesting way of telling a story in an action game. But by god, it’s a short story. If someone as crap at gaming as me can get through it in a few hours, l33t players will no doubt get through it in ten minutes. As Mupwangle has rightly pointed out, that’s because it was originally a Halo 3 expansion pack; unfortunately it hasn’t been priced accordingly.

It’s still fun though, if you like wandering around in the dark listening to jazz.


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