As part of the FAC (Featured Artists Coalition), a team of musicians including Billy Bragg, Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and Blur’s Dave Rowntree have criticised Mandelson’s plans with Mason quoted as saying “The last thing we want to be doing is going to war with our fanbase. File-sharing means a new generation of fans for us”.

As pointed out though by Lily Allen on her myspace blog , that’s all well and good for established artists like Pink Floyd, Radiohead and Blur but what about emerging artists? Allen’s thoughts are perhaps more realistic as they reflect a more recent successful artist who knows she’s lucky to have paid off her record company advance. Ms. Allen also quite rightly reasons that as record company bosses “start to lose big from piracy, they’re not slashing their salaries – they’re pulling what they invest in A&R,” meaning less room for development and less room for new acts. Her blog sparked replies from both Matt Bellamy of Muse and James Blunt, neither who agreed with her point of view entirely. Allen has since set up a blog at http://idontwanttochangetheworld.blogspot.com to post her fellow artists reactions to her post (which she’s now deleted due to insulting comments).

Ultimately, the problem as I see it, is that the youth of today have been using file-sharing sites and programs adeptly for nigh-on ten years with reprimand. When you’ve been downloading music for free since you were 12 years old, why would you suddenly start paying for it now?

Services like Spotify are brilliant and all but young people largely aren’t willing to use their parent’s credit card to pay for a subscription when they can get the ad-supported version for free or download the MP3 for nothing. Most young people don’t care about copyright or how artists make a living. How can musicians change listening habits when they spend more time bickering amongst themselves?

Deep down, we all know artists have to be paid for their creativity but how continues to be a perplexing and wildly divisive issue. The seeds of free have already been sown but the younger generations will not give it up easily.

All you have to enter the competition is answer to the question below by finding it in current edition of Day & Night supplement in the Irish Independent today (June 12th with Chris Cornell on the cover).

What gig is reviewed in this week’s Day & Night?

HOW TO ENTER: Find the answer in the magazine, then turn to page 17 for details on how to enter by text and phone.

Last week, Erykah Badu had a baby girl. How do we know? Herself and her husband tweeted about the event AS IT HAPPENED. At first, she began with “Morning, I’m in labor” before telling her then 4500 followers (it’s doubled since) how long was between contractions. As Erykah prepared to have the baby, her husband, producer Jay Electronica kept things going on Twitter – “Labor has begun. Stand back. No hospitals. No doctors. No medicine. We’re waiting for the midwife to show.” He followed that with updates on her water breaking, how much she had dilated and then bizarrely this – “I see the head, full of hair.” After the pregnancy, the couple posted updates extolling their experiences and they later announced the newborn’s name on Twitter.

Isn’t this the concept of having an online life taken a little too far? Is no moment private anymore? She’s not the only one at it, though her story is by far the most bizarre. Celebrities and musicians have been using their blogs and Twitter pages to have cyberspats for a while now. Lily Allen recently claimed she would publicise Katy Perry’s mobile number on Facebook after Perry made a jibe about her weight. Courtney Love continued her crazy routine on her discombobulated Myspace blog by trashing.. well everyone. Washington rapper Wale had an argument on Twitter with DJ Semtex after he appeared on his radio show because he was unhappy with the interview. Axl Rose recently launched into an expletive-filled tirade at fans in an online chat because he disliked what they asked him. And last summer, Kanye West got so mad at fans disappointed by his performance at Bonaroo his that he finished his woe-is-me rant with “I’m typing so f**king hard I might break my f**king Mac book Air!!!!!!!!”.

As well as some anger management classes, these stars could take a leaf out of others who have never erred on the side of craziness and who have used blogs and other social networking services to their advantage without resorting to diatribes. Look at Victoria Hesketh aka Little Boots whose short career so far has been fueled by Youtube videos of her performing and blogging about her musical life. Nothing wrong with that. At the moment, she seems like a fairly normal girl whose suddenly hanging out with Perez Hilton and going to the Grammys (according to her Twitter). Hopefully, fame won’t dissuade her from blogging with grace, humility and privacy; things which today’s stars are increasingly lacking.