Renowned singer Lily Allen and 100 other British musicians assembled recently to discuss the best way to deal with illegal downloading of music. The 3-hour discussion involved artists like George Michael, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’ Brien, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and Annie Lennox.

An earlier public dispute over the issue had resulted in negative publicity by the media. However, this time the general conclusion arrived at was throttling of bandwidth of offenders, which the musicians considered to be a better alternative to discourage unlawful downloading, rather than suspension of internet accounts.

It has been agreed that sending two warning letters to file-sharers before enforcing any restriction should be the norm. This echoes Business Secretary Lord Mandelson’s suggestion of temporary suspension of connection as a “last resort”, when all other efforts to restrain illegal file sharers fail.

Because the internet has become a basic need for most of us, and with the advent of the mobile broadband and the free laptop, it can be accessed whenever and wherever a person wants; many now consider broadband access as a ‘utility’. This method of throttling intends to make file sharing impractical, while allowing basic web and email access to remain functional.

Meanwhile, singer Lily Allen had earlier refused to attend the meeting, after her personal blog carrying her avid views on internet piracy received a lot of adverse criticism. Nevertheless, she appeared at the venue and spoke quite a number of times during the discussion. However, she declined to comment on the matter.