Now that he’s facing formidable opposition from Sir Elton John and Captain James Blunt, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien has finally spoken out about the pseudo showdown between the Featured Artists Coalition and Lily Allen’s “It’s Not Alright” blog (which has been either hacked or mysteriously deleted by Allen in the past 12 hours).
“I completely agree with Lily Allen,” O’Brien told BBC World Service (via NME). “We’re [Radiohead] certainly not going to suffer. A lot of people have downloaded our music for free, but ultimately we don’t suffer as much as a small band.”
O’Brien maintained his stance that the government should not be allowed to disconnect alleged illegal file-sharers, but insisted that what he and “people like Lily Allen are saying” to music pirates is: “Listen, if you want a great vibrant music scene and your favorite bands to be able to carry on doing it, you have a responsibility to pay for some of the work that they’ve produced.”
Sounds like a bit of damage control to me, but it’s still nice to see these two finally agreeing on something. Teaching the public responsibility could be an impossible task, though. Trent Reznor learned that the hard way.