Pirate Tax Funds Pirate Album
Written by Ernesto on June 13, 2008For every blank CDr bought, a few cents “pirate tax” are added to compensate artists for loss of revenue when people share their albums. However, not every artist agrees that sharing is wrong so as a statement, the Swedish artist Mr.Suitcase has used his “pirate tax” income to make a pirate album.
Mr.Suitcase’s latest album “Frauds” is something in between a remix and a mash-up, built out of other people’s music, and fully funded by the pirate tax refund he received for his first album.
It all began last year when, having released his album “Guidelines For An Emerging Century”, Mr.Suitcase received a payment from Stim, the Swedish Performing Rights Society. Included in it was a refund from the tax that is put on all recordable media in Sweden. Whenever CDRs, mp3-players or similar items are sold, an extra fee of 0,04 crowns/megabyte is added and later paid back to the artists.
“First, I got a bit put off by receiving the money because to me, that kind of arbitrary hand-out of alms is a ridiculous system,” Mr.Suitcase said. “Then I thought, why not see it as an opportunity and earmark the money for something creative. And since the money came from piracy, I had to use it for more piracy, right?”
With the money, Mr.Suitcase bought old used effect boxes and began experimenting. Without knowing where it would take him, he started sending fragments and loops from other people’s songs through the effects.
“I’ve always been fascinated by cut-and-paste aesthetics. I grew up with artists like The Future Sound of London and Saint Etienne who layered samples and combined the bits and pieces to create something brand new, something that became more than just the sum of the elements.”
He says the project “got completely out of control” when friends started to drop by the studio to record new instruments and vocals over the samples. In the end, he had an album’s worth of new songs, although they all were rooted in someone else’s work.
“As the project grew, I lost count of how many original songs that were used in it. Nearly a hundred, I’d guess. It’s very diverse, from Prince to The Rice Twins, from Ashanti to Zongamin. In the end, I realized it wasn’t a mixtape or mash-up but it wasn’t an album either. I decided the tracks were all frauds, called it a wrap and posted it on The Pirate Bay.”
Mr.Suitcase thinks artists should be more relaxed about non-commercial use of their work. Since the world went digital, he feels the availability is a natural consequence that should be embraced rather than hopelessly opposed.
“The way Internet works, there’s no reason to argue for or against file sharing. We can just conclude here and now that file sharing ‘is’. For me, I’m very attached to the idea that the top-down structure of producers and consumers has turned into a blur, and that anything created isn’t only there to be experienced but can also be a building-block for new creations. It’s fantastic! I was absolutely thrilled when techno producer The Field used one of my recordings for his brilliant track ‘Istedgade’.”
“To me, ‘Frauds’ is a statement. There’s so much negativity in the debate. ‘File sharing means artists can’t…’, ‘File sharing means nobody will ever…’ I think it’s the opposite, I think the beautiful aspect of the digital era is that anything recorded can be remixed, tweaked and modified.”
Mr.Suitcase’s album “Frauds” can be downloaded via BitTorrent at mrsuitcase.se.
Previously: Canada Proposes Draconian Anti-Piracy Law
Next: MediaDefender Goes Forward with P2P Marketing
43 Responses
Nothing more interesting to write about no??
We could say the same to you MJMC, why bother commenting if you have nothing interesting to say??
Who burns CDs these days neway? I plug my USB drive full of PIRATED music straight into the head unit! Kiss my azz suckers!
cool news, good to see another artist highlighting serious problems with government approaches to piracy, and using the situation to produce something positive for fans; for both customers and pirates.
..HE BOTHERS BECAUSE HE’S A DOFUS!
Btw, bravo Mr.Suitcase!
Hmmm… money going to artists from anti-piracy schemes? This is definitely new.
For every £1 he got, the PRS kept £10.
^ Sorry, STIM (PRS in the UK). Where’s the comment editing? I want a TF account :(
hooray for mr suitcase.
thats awesome.
The problem with basing it on money is that it presumes that money for the artist is the most important part of culture, as some way of “making money” that must be preserved. Of course, this is nonsense, because what people do with culture is more important than a money-incentive for creativity, and such an incentive was never necessary in the first place.
great music too!
very interesting concept, definitely going to give it a download/listen.
Nice to see musicians/artists thinking this way but i think its still inviting trouble from arseholes like Prince… i mean look at his history, he has pulled all he can of his stuff from you tube, even went as far as to issue a DMCA on youtube for the bottleged copy that someone made while he sang another artist’s (radiohead) song: creep
Not to mention he has asked/insisted that many guitar tab sites take out tablature and tutorials for his songs… wouldnt surprise me in the least if he acts like an arsehole and goes after Mr.Suitcase for using a “portion” of his music.
Cheers!
http://www.ezee.se/ Copyright is CopyWRONG
I love Mr. Suitcase =D.
Mr. Suitcase has such a healthy and optimistic view of piracy. That story was really quite inspiring.
“I think it’s the opposite, I think the beautiful aspect of the digital era is that anything recorded can be remixed, tweaked and modified.”
That’s a great quote! More power to you, Mr. Suitcase! You’re welcome to my pirate tax any day… if only the government was as nice as you when it came to other taxes! :-)
First: we have this ripp off in germany for quite some time .. It paid some idiot in holland ( i think ) for a smurf song a castle, no joke. Probably this is the case or whatever why we in germany have so many idiots singing while we are the biggest state in europe 8 with > 80 Mill people.
Apart from that : please change the display of comments to last first.. apart from not getting i´m first comments it is much more interesting
so a new cassetteboy ?
I only buy dvds if a good brand but dirt cheap. I’m not paying extra for those scabs, which is what schoolkids called those who go around trying to bludge money off everyone. Only these bloodsuckers actually do it.
If I’m paying “pirate tax” anyway, then burning disks of copyrighted works must be legal, since you can’t legally tax something illegal. This sounds like another good defense.
what is http://www.ezee.se/ and why is it always appearing in posts here?
Nice One :) Keep up the good work!
Are we related?
Huge props to Mr.Suitcase - looking forward to hearing his stuff (downloading as I type).
P.S. @#1 ‘MJMC’: You have even less of interest to write about, you unamusing, lackwitted twat.
No offence…
Always great coverage. Love coming to your blog.
—-
http://googlesearchgame.com
@20 i like what you’re saying. if i am paying a pirate tax on burnable media and then use it to burn a home movie or home slideshow or nin/radiohead/mr. suitcase/free music album shouldn’t i be entitled to a rebate of some kind.
Yeah lol nice, it’s crazy how in reality they have become more popular because of file sharing lol
http://www.boomtorrent.com
Nothing on class action lawsuits?
Nothing on sandvining?
Freepress convention for media reform?
FCC chairman pledging (although not unexpectedly, one day later the FCC betrays us again by saying broadband is “fine” in america) to split duo-polies and enforce net neutrality?
(this is a reply to the first poster btw who wanted other news)
Wow…so unlike torrentfreak to not aggrandize small things to agitate the base.
http://www.savetheinternet.com
Yarrgh! I wants my share of the booty!!!
Oh, wait - not that kind of pirate, never mind.
Pirate tax is a bunch of BS. All of this is caused by the RIAA — they say they do it to protect the artists, but they are actually doing it to make more money for themselves. The artists end up getting like 2% of their album sales — they get most of their money from concerts and merchnadise.
So people spreading their songs around actually helps them, not hurt. It only hurts the RIAA. RIAA are a bunch of chocolate-eyed pigs
@30
This asshole has been spamming his trojan infected malware on several forums. Please post this douchebag’s IP so the trackdown (and the asskicking) can begin.
@ 31, no it’s not. why would anyone want to post malware on the internet ?
nonsense.
this is a false accusation. Unless you download it and clicked the thing, you can’t prove it.
now download it and click, don’t trust the anti-malware scanners.
Click it.
@ #1
You’re an idiot. I’m glad TF talks about this artists, it is important to support them anyway we can. After all we are all on the same boat…
All the Music should be FREE and with programs like LimeWire they WILL be FREE.
JT
http://www.FIreMe.To/udi
Hey,
Great article! I always come to your blog because of your interesting articles, Can’t wait for th nest one.
Review community
@ 21 Jun 14, 2008 at 01:56 by confused
thats called “a shameless plug” many people are doing it unfortunately to spam just some totall shit and up until now Ernesto has given to little attention to that annoying problem!
In the case of the plug you mentioned I guess thats a bit differnt since that page has “real” content and therefor get some slack cuted here.
to the other guys that quote each other. DO not jsut use the comment number# if you refer to something since these numbers obviously change in this workpress setup in case when some spam comments gets deleted later by the team or some comment with links that was in the waiting queue get switched life by TF-Team guys.
Do it like i did here, refer to the commenters name (and/or the timestamp shown next to it)
> “what is http://www.ezee.se/ and why is it always appearing in posts here?”
Someone’s site that they put a link to at the end of their posts.
Great article, great read. Thanks!
Poster No.1 is an idiot with the attention span of a 2-year-old.
ezee.se is a Swedish site, atleast its a swedish domain (the .se is the swedish tld) The people writing there are pretty gutsy and pull few punches calling the mpaa and riaa slime, douchebags,gangsters and so on maybe piratebay influence? it does not get updated as frequently as here but i still like reading there, and esp like their new RIAA logo, although it might get them into a bit of trouble for going a step too far??
obviously the guys who mantain ezee read here because theres always a comment from them with a link bak to thir site. might be a shamless plug but they do write on topic so does not bother me much, once i did see 3 links in one tiny post… and the guy later apoligised for it.. cant remember the post though maybe 2 or 3 posts back? (sorry english is not my first languge)
huh, suitcases don’t talk…..
album sucks !
How can I be pirating something by creating a CD version of it whe I have already paid a piracy tax to compensate artists for the activity. Don’t i inherently obtain the ability to do the activity by pre-compensating for it. Especially when its the media industry that imposed those fees.
/Included in it was a refund from the tax that is put on all recordable media in Sweden. Whenever CDRs, mp3-players or similar items are sold, an extra fee of 0,04 crowns/megabyte is added and later paid back to the artists./
Umm, is that math right? Wouldn’t that be around 2800 krona (465 USD) per spindle (assuming 100 700 MB disks)?!
I love the album. So good. Especially his rendition of “Yeah!” from Usher.
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