I’m not suggesting this is a well-thought out position from her

I’m guessing – hoping – that she’s entirely inconsistent in it. That when an old lady thanks her for helping her cross the road, she doesn’t demand cash in return. That when someone tell her they love her, she doesn’t send them a bill representing what she thinks that love is worth…

of course not. She’s as multi-currency as the rest of us. She just has an industry-induced blind-spot when it comes to music. I wonder if she refuses all free CDs from friends in the industry. Again, probably not. And neither should she, if no-one else in the industry does. She’s not a music industry rethinker, she doesn’t appear to have studied this. She’s someone who when interviewed says whatever comes into her head, and sometimes those things sound insane.

Which makes it all the more embarrassing for the FAC and the journalists who defended her nonsense file-sharing stance, I guess…

But the serious side of this is the sort of consumerist thinking – that you have to somehow be a music consumer and not be able to share music except if you are doing so for a profit – for decidedly nonmusic goals.

Ok, so everyone knows that Lily is a tool or a fool. But how do you tell people that they don’t need to have sales metrics in order to know what is good music to listen to. That you can enjoy music whether it is selling tons or it’s not selling at all – that the proof of the value of music is in the music itself. In fact, come to think of it – many of my most valued listening experiences as a music student were live bootleg tapes of superior musicians jamming and those tapes were strictly passed from friend to friend with no monetary compensation whatsoever…

She’s never given much evidence of extreme cleverness in any other interviews, so why break the habit now…?

The value of your music from the individual’s perspective is not at all connected to how much they are willing to spend. It would seem that Lily needs to ask her fans direct – i.e. put on a gig herself, and assuming that everyone there ‘values’ her music – she will no doubt see that a good proportion of those fans might not have bought the record, download, etc – and may instead have received it for free (i.e. from a friend, or illegally downloaded).

…I’d like to see those figures, actually.

“That’s right Lily: it doesn’t matter whether YOU get any money for your music, as long as SOMEONE does.”

Because the important thing is that the consumer pays, not that the producer gains.

Suddenly reminded of an old song…

“Robin Hood, what a crook!
Gave away what he took!
Charity’s fine, subscribe to mine,
Get out and pick a pocket or two…”

And bearing in mind how Lionel Bart was treated by the business, doubly apt.