The Consequences of Being a Legally Clueless Celebrity Online

Sep 28th, 2009 | By Jessica Dobias | Category: Blogging, Copyright, Featured, Lead Article, Social Media, Web 2.0

The Example Case

For whatever reason, Hollywood and the Music Industry just love to tell us how we should all live our lives. Britney Spears practiced Kabbalah, then she got a tattoo? Jessica Simpson waited until marriage, now she’s divorced and has lots of boyfriends? Oh, I could go on and on. It’s one thing for a celebrity to represent a cause he or she is passionate about. It’s another for a celebrity to cluelessly support a cause he or she knows nothing about.

Recently Great Britain considered a law targeting those who download music illegally. The proposed law would be punishable by loss of internet access forever. In response to this litigation, Lily Allen, a British Pop Singer, expressed her support for the law on her MySpace blog and on Twitter. Lily Allen’s MySpace blog was filled with hundreds of negative comments after her anti-piracy statements.

Later, Techdirt discovered Lily Allen, the virtuous leading lady of copyright law, had infringed on their copyright in failing to attribute a section of their article she had copied and pasted. Techdirt then found two mix tapes with 19 copyrighted tracks Lily Allen had created with other artists on her website for free download. Techdirt pointed out that if the proposed British law passed prosecuting those who shared copyrighted content illegally, Lily Allen would be held accountable for her illegal distribution of the copyrighted mix tapes.

2009-09-25_0157 Perez Hilton, the infamous celebrity blogger, took aim calling Lily Allen a hypocrite on Twitter. (Ironically, Perez Hilton is the same celebrity blogger who judged the Miss USA competition and called a contestant, Miss California, a dumb “b*tch” when she said she did not support gay marriage.)

2009-09-25_0152 According to TorrentFreak, Lily Allen stated the abuse was just too much and responded the following about the mix tapes: ““I made those mixtapes 5 years ago, I didn’t have a knowledge of the workings of the music industry back then…” Lily Allen subsequently announced she plans to retire.

Ironically, she announced her retirement on the same anti-piracy MySpace blog she recently deleted…it will be interesting to see if she’s actually gone for good.

On the claim of knowledge, I’d like to say this. The number one ultimate golden rule when it comes to the law: Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Educate yourself.

For Visual Learners…

Just in case you are a visual learner like me, Torrent Freak posted this video with song (for download) written by an angry fan. *Content contains curse words.

Opinion

I’m a big advocate of copyright law, but an equally strong advocate for access to information.

Unfortunately, I really dislike being told whether I’m making good or bad decisions based on the limited knowledge of a pop singer. Everyone is entitled to their own moral compass which hopefully guides them to make decisions which benefit society. However, the best rule of thumb is to practice what one preaches.

Copyright law is complex, sometimes messy and consists of very few bright line rules. It can be difficult to know what crosses the line. Despite Lily Allen’s wealth of knowledge on the “industry”, it’s understandable how the pop singer could be confused.

On the other hand, the mix tapes were copyrighted and Lily Allen gave them out freely. Maybe she misunderstood what her rights as an artist were or what she was allowed to give away freely? It’s important to note though that this sort of incident can and does happen everyday. But when it happens to me or you, nobody really notices because we mean very little in the celebrity world. However, when an artist makes a blatant statement labeling those who pirates music as thieves and then violates the very laws she preaches we should uphold, she looks more like a hypocritical Senator stealing money from taxpayers than a starving artist just trying to protect her creative work.

Sadly, Lily Allen was the victim of her own opinionated voice. (And it is very opinionated, ever hear the song entitled, “F**k You“?) Needless to say, this pop star is no IP Lawyer and thus, I wouldn’t advise you to hire her as your copyright attorney. However, I think her message is ultimately correct.

I love music, art, books, software, technology, etc. etc. etc. Some of the most wonderful creations are the result of brilliant and gifted artists who never realize their monetary worth. It’s unfair for someone to work on creative work and never reap the financial benefits of it. When artists are unable to benefit from their works, society loses out. Instead of colorful artists who can continue to create and generate art from the profits of their creative work, society ends up with Van Gogh-like artists who die miserable unhappy lives with limited means of creating great works to inspire future generations. If Van Gogh had been given the means, would we have received something even more spectacular than Starry Night? Is that even possible?

I empathize with Lily Allen, but I also empathize with her commentators who believe the RIAA is greedy. Greed kills creativity as evidenced by the current state of the music industry. It’s hard to feel guilty for the “starving artist” when she’s driving around in a Mercedes and spending $112,000 on a monthly American Express Bill, especially when the rest of the country is cutting back and clipping coupons. It all makes bypassing the iTunes $9.99 album for the free illegal downloads that much easier.