“Hot Air”

Robbie Williams is one of those British pop stars who will never cross the ocean because he is just too middling in every way. I have listened to at least three of his albums at various times and I have absolutely no impression of him whatsoever: not bad, not good, not interesting, not scandalous, British but not overtly identifiable as such.

Anyway, he thinks file sharing is swell:

Singer Robbie Williams has said he believes music piracy is a “great” idea. He made the comment at a music trade fair in Cannes, predicting it would anger his record company EMI.

Williams said he had investigated the issue of music piracy before renegotiating his new recording contract last year.

He said: “I think it’s great, really I do.

“There is nothing anyone can do about it.

“I am sure my record label would hate me saying it, and my manager and my accountants.”

The record industry estimates that it loses millions of pounds each year thanks to the public downloading tracks free from the internet.

‘Hot air’

Williams, whose contract with EMI is worth a reported £80m, said when he had been to see all the major labels and asked what they were going to do about music piracy “I heard a lot of hot air”.

“The heads of the record labels don’t know what to do about it.”

Williams’ latest best-selling album Escapology has so far sold five million copies since it was released on 18 November. [BBC News]