It’s been quite a week for illegal music downloaders. Lily Allen has been mouthing off about the subject to anyone who will listen, although her cavalier blog on the topic is sadly no more. Her activities were originally sparked by the work of the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), who are back in the news again today.

Radiohead's Ed O'Brien, Keane's Tim Rice-Oxley and Blur's Dave Rowntree are spearheading a campaign by the organization, which aims to implement a “three strikes” rule for illegal downloaders. Anyone indulging in the practice would receive three warning letters and then find their download speeds drastically cut if they persisted.

The FAC members have voted to support Allen in her campaign, and also issued a statement that says: "Our meeting voted overwhelmingly to support a three-strike sanction on those who persistently download illegal files, sanctions to consist of a warning letter, a stronger warning letter and a final sanction of the restriction of the infringer’s bandwidth to a level which would render file-sharing of media files impractical while leaving basic email and web access functional."

[NME]