Stars due at file-sharing summit

The Featured Artists' Coalition includes Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, Blur's Dave Rowntree, Kate Nash and Billy Bragg

Big-name British music artists will try to hammer out a truce in a public row over how to tackle illegal downloading at a meeting in London on Thursday.

A debate over whether to punish file-sharers has been raging among stars such as Lily Allen and Radiohead.

It was sparked when the government asked for views on such sanctions.

The Featured Artists' Coalition (FAC) has invited all artists to the "urgent meeting to hammer out a unified position on this issue".

The FAC, which counts Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason and Blur drummer Dave Rowntree among its board members, is opposed to government proposals to suspend the internet accounts of serial file-sharers.

'Not after a fight'

Although they do not condone file-sharing, they say it would be practically impossible to find a failsafe way to track copyrighted material and penalise the perpetrators.

Doing so would also be a major invasion of privacy and turn thousands of fans against the artists and the industry, they argue.

Lily Allen, meanwhile, has set up a blog to publish statements from other singers who support a crack-down on piracy, saying: "We need to make clear unlawful file-sharing is wrong and make an attempt to stop it."

Artists including James Blunt, Mark Ronson, Alesha Dixon, Gary Kemp and Gary Barlow have backed her.

"I want to make it clear that I'm not after a fight with the Featured Artists Coalition - I want us artists to stand together on this," she wrote on Monday, but added that they had made a statement that "just doesn't make sense".