Why is Piracy Perpetuating Plastic Pop

Lars Ulrich was publicly critisized for taking actions against piracy in the music industry by suing napster. Although he claimed it was never about money but control, the fact that he was wealthy made it seem like only wealthy greedy rock stars cared about piracy. However Lily Allen did still speak out against piracy, after some older musicians had spoke out against the internet copyright laws, with the arguement that they had already made their money and they didn't care about making it impossible for the younger artists to make their living off music. However she was soon recieving death threats and hate mail and was forced to take the website down. Although some older musicians have expressed their concern for younger musicians trying to make it in the music industry with piracy looming over them. Massive Attack's 3D reported to the BBC on how worrying it was to see how many downloads each unlicensed piracy site was getting, '25,000, mulitply that by all the [unlicensed] sites in the world and that can be my whole profit gone'. He goes on to say how the continued actions of piracy will 'cheapen' the music industry. Noel Gallagher however has stronger opinions on consumer use of unlicensed downloads of music, making the point that if it cost the artist a lot of money to make he should at least be able to make that money back from the sales of the album he made. As an  independant artist on his own record label he explains that his tours are progressively becoming longer and longer due to this, and the money he loses is out of his own pocket rather than being backed and covered by a company. He goes on to say that this causes the music to be made by comittee and focus groups, using Jimi Hendrix to make the point that the artist makes the music how he wants to and then the consumer accepts it and buys it if they want to. Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins follows to explain how this new piracy technology has turned 'Music culture into a service culuture' meaning that artists no longer make music based on their ideas and personal talents, they make music that is to be a commercial success. He concludes in noting how even if someone was to build a manufactured model person of a musician he wouldn't be picked, it would be someone who had commercial music and straight teeth and looked like the most typically socially acceptable person.