Lily Allen: 'File-sharing is not fair'

Lily Allen has hit out at Pink Floyd's Nick Mason and Ed O'Brien of Radiohead for condoning the sharing of music on the internet.

The 24-year-old singer launched a rant on her MySpace blog against file-sharing, branding it "music piracy" and claiming it was turning the British music industry into "nothing but puppets paid for by Simon Cowell" as it made it "harder and harder for new acts to emerge".

Lily wrote: "I think music piracy is having a dangerous effect on British music, but some really rich and successful artists like Nick Mason from Pink Floyd and Ed O'Brien from Radiohead don't seem to think so."

Allen continued: "These guys from huge bands said file-sharing music is fine. It probably is fine for them. They do sell-out arena tours and have the biggest Ferrari collections in the world.

"For new talent though, file-sharing is a disaster as it's making it harder and harder for new acts to emerge.

"You don't start out in music with the Ferraris. Instead you get a huge debt from your record company, which you spend years working your arse off to repay.

"When you manage to get a contract, all those pretty videos and posters advertising your album have to be paid for and, as the artist, you have to pay for them.

"I've only just finished paying off all the money I owe my record company. I'm lucky that I've been successful and managed to pay it back, but not everyone's so lucky.

"The more difficult it is for new artists to make it, the less new artists you'll see and the more British music will be nothing but puppets paid for by Simon Cowell."

She added: "Is this the way we want British music to go? Now, obviously I'm going to benefit from fighting piracy, but I think without fighting it, British music is going to suffer."

Allen built up her fan base sharing her music on social networking site MySpace and blogging updates to her fans, but has recently become a devoted follower of rival networking site Twitter.

The Smile singer - who is travelling to South America for an arena tour - posted a link on Twitter to her MySpace blog saying "please read and consider".

The star, who also had a hit with Fear, vowed to campaign against music piracy and work towards finding better ways of purchasing music legally online.

She wrote: "I don't think what's out there is perfect. It's stupid that kids can't buy anything on the internet without credit, forcing them to steal Mum's credit card or download illegally.

"File-sharing's not OK for British music. I want to get people working together to use new digital opportunities to encourage new artists."