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Coalition of artists says moves to suspend offenders’ broadband connections are like ‘cracking a nut with a sledgehammer’

A growing rift is developing in the music industry over proposals by business secretary Lord Mandelson to crack down on persistent filesharers by suspending their broadband connections.

The row has pitted big names such as Billy Bragg and Annie Lennox against record labels and the Musicians’ Union ahead of an approaching government deadline for comments in its illegal filesharing consultation.

A coalition of artists including Lennox, Bragg and Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason argue such laws would alienate their audience and risk criminalising music fans. The Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) says the planned crackdown fails to recognise “evidence that repeat file-sharers of music are also repeat purchasers of music”.

But music industry figures have hit back that it is too easy for established, high-earning artists to take this view and that the big stars are neglecting the low-earning session musicians and lesser-known bands. Some fear divisions in the industry could derail their anti-piracy fight when new laws are close.

Fran Nevrkla, head of the royalty collection society PPL, says the FAC’s claims are “grossly naive and desperately damaging”.

“All of us look like a bunch of charlies,” he says. “This is more than unhelpful. It’s destructive, I wish I could understand the hostility. But if between us all we don’t screw it up, within 12 months we could have some legislation in place. I am quietly confident.”

Nevrkla stresses that 90% of PPL’s 42,000 members earn less than £15,000 a year from music and that the FAC has neglected the low earners. “We don’t understand why they feel they have the right to imply they speak on behalf of all artists and musicians. Their views are not shared by the majority.”

Dave Rowntree, an FAC board member and the drummer in Blur, says Mandelson’s proposals are akin to trying to “crack a nut with a sledgehammer” .