Swedish Record Labels See Filesharing as Virtue
While the RIAA sues its customers, and blames filesharing for the decrease in record sales, a coalition of seven independent Swedish record labels explores alternatives that make use of the Internet and filesharing technology.
The increase in music piracy is a signal that customers want something that is simply not available. High quality, DRM-free music that they can buy online for a reasonable price. Filesharing is a virtue, and the coalition of Swedish record labels understands this, as they introduce The Swedish Model. They write:
We in the music industry have shown ourselves unable to follow in this change. Some of us have even waged war against those the music is recorded for – the listeners. The rift between producers and consumers has never been bigger. “The truth is that Internet has provided us with a fantastic grey scale of possibilities! Instead of fighting back we ought to obtain learning from the daily newspaper and the computer game industries. They early realized the superiority of the internet and developed new services there.
This sounds like music to our ears. We’ve said it over and over again here at TorrentFreak, The Internet has changed the way people interact with music. Music is more accessible, more popular and cheaper to distribute. Record labels should embrace filesharing and compete with piracy instead of fighting it, and it seems like that these Swedish labels understand that.
TorrentFreak spoke with Henrik von Euler of Flora & Fauna, one of the labels participating in the initiative. We asked him what he thinks the greatest benefits of filesharing are: “Well the first thing is pretty obvious, that you can reach much larger audiences more quickly,” he said. “You bypass many of the existing power-structures and communicate directly with the listeners. It is also a very direct medium where the step from production to consumption is extremely short which is good for creativity I think. In the old days you could have an album ready and have to wait like a year or so to have it released and now you can have your music up online the same day you get the master.”
Henrik told us that he has “no beef” with The Pirate Bay, but he admits that filesharing also has its downsides. “On a personal note I find it hard to choose what to listen to”, he told us “The vast number of sites, bands etc makes me feel stressed out, like I’m always missing something. Speed and accessibility is good because it is fast and accessible but also bad because everything turns more superficial and volatile.”
Henrik was also quite clear about the lawsuits that the RIAA has started agianst music fans: “It’s insane. It can only have bad consequences. I don’t see how they can think antagonizing the listeners will help them secure any of their much desired income.”
“This is great”, says Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Swedish Pirate Party Piratpartiet. “There are creative people who think ahead. These are labels constructing a new business model. The old dinosaurs lobby politicians, sue to the left and to the right and try to control the internet. There is room for the services of a label, few musicians want to do everything themselves. But the labels must serve their musicians and their fans, not the other way around. These new labels have understood that. The future belongs to them.”
The role of the record labels will change in the future, but not entirely according to Henrik von Euler, “I think the role of the label has started to change long ago. It moves towards a more creative role much more like the art curator or such like. And also, just because artists CAN do everything themselves from production to promotion, administration etc doesn’t mean that they actually want to.”
“On another note,” says Henrik “I must add that this is hopefully the last time I will answer questions about filesharing, good or bad. It is there! Live with it. Love it, hate it, I don’t care. But please don’t for a second think that it will go away or that you can solve it like it is a problem.
Previously: MediaDefender Parent Company Facing Liquidation
Next: RIAA Keeps Settlement Money, Artists May Sue
113 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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@6 said:
“I have often wondered when most of us have to work (that is get our hands dirty so to speak) in return for cash, and musicians can record an album then sit back and collect royalties.
When a carpenter makes a chair, he (or she) doesn’t get paid every time someone sits on it!
Sorry this is a little out of context here, but it needs saying!”
They have more in common than you realize. A musician is only paid once for an album, per person who buys it–just as a carpenter is paid each time someone buys a chair.
People trying to compare material property with virtual property are at the same inteligence level as the people in the RIAA.
They are two things in completley 2 different worlds they dont even follow the same rules of existence.
Art was never designed to make income people decided “IT SHOULD”.
Art was never meant to replace a profitable job. Yet people decided it should.
People in most non art related jobs earn money by constantly working.
I dont even understand how u even dare to compare an idea with a phisycal product.
The entire copyright law was to bend the rules of existence for profit.
A phisical product costs resources to reproduce.A idea doesent.
Digital material is not a phisical product.It doesent cost resources to reproduce.
Finaly art is expressing your ideas its not a business.No matter how much u want it to be or how hard people try to make it.
People earn from art because we want to pay for it.Those that do art for our entertainment deserve to be able to live from it.As soon as they demand money for it they are in only for the profit.Thus they can … insert insult here. If u want money get a job.
Great news, how exactly will this new stuff work?
Ahh, let me QFT:
[quote]filesharing, good or bad. It is there! Live with it. Love it, hate it, I don’t care. But please don’t for a second think that it will go away or that you can solve it like it is a problem[/quote]
One can only hope that it’ll get through enormously thick skullbone of other politics and businessmen around the world. :-)
People have copyed music for ages, people hear music in clubs yet they don’t pay to play a track. My comment before stated that artists would still make money from concerts, t-shirts and so on. Once they become bigger they get better equipment, experience and so on. They would still be able to make a living out of it. You can’t copyright sound in my opinion. It is never the same when played through speakers as it was played through any other speaker. The only thing that is the same is the digital data, but all that is is 1’s & 0’s. All I have to do converet my .cda files on my CD’s to FLAC and the digital signature is no longer the same. I then proceed to share away.
Please guys, don’t feed the trolls!
Surely you can spot the hired media-defender guns by their antiquated way of reasoning?
Everyone knows today, that only a few, select artists can make a living from recorded music; the vast majority have to either get a daytime job or make money from actually *doing* some music job — gigs.
And surely we all know that the music quality is not as good today as it was some decades ago? Even the record companies know it — why else would they spend so much resources creating all those “Best of…” collections, where they charge the fans once again for music they bought on vinyl years ago?
How about this outline for a business model: The artist sets up a website where people can donate money, and proceeds to make a recording when a certain amount of cash has been donated. Donors (especially ones contributing early, when the treasure chest is near empty)will then get some bonus, like a nice physical package of the music, or merchandise, or possibility to obtain good seats at a concert for a reduced price.
Every time you mass quote god kills a virgin..
Awesome quotes though ;)
[quote comment="299605"]quote
It isn’t any different, and while the “production” of multiple instances of music is entirely automated (so to speak), a carpenter can have his chair mass produced. Similarly, you pay a premium for a high quality hand made item, you pay a premium for a live show.
Your analogy was fine, but the usage was misguided.[/quote]
No his analogy is just fine and the usage correct, because he was talking about the actual work done, and getting paid for actual work. As opposed to getting paid over and over without any more work. And as you just said yourself, there is no work involved for the artist when making new instances to get paid for. IE. those artists expect to sit back and be paid without any additional work on their part. Which was his point.
lol @ baloo2. I don’t work for media-defender. I was probably one of the first to download their emails. I thought that whole thing was great.
great article, nice to see i’m living in a forward thinking country (in sooooo many ways).
how money do you think the RIAA and MPAA spend on lawyers per year? is it equal to, more or less than what would be needed to change their distribution systems to p2p?
but then maybe they don’t want to as the ‘cd’ is a cash cow which they want to keep alive as long as possible, who knows?
well they’re scrambling to figure out a new model as we speak. all the suing is trying to delay the majority of the public from stealing from them and it’s working, generally speaking. it’s also to try to get some profit back from all the stolen property.
the thing is like, okay, iTunes offers me a song for $1 at okay quality. torrents offer me full albums for free at usually better quality. that’s just unbeatable.
free isn’t sustainable though. something has to happen to fix what’s going on before EVERYONE thinks it’s okay to steal people’s work 24/7.
that attitude of most of the people who fileshare is just outrageous. they don’t know/care how the industry works and thinks because it’s just a 70mb download that it didn’t cost thousands of dollars and possibly hundreds of hours to make.
the music industry isn’t just a dream like you might think. it’s work. I know an engineer who stay in sessions for 52 hours straight. working. not sleeping, not smoking weed, working. this is not uncommon!
“the thing is like, okay, iTunes offers me a song for $1 at okay quality. torrents offer me full albums for free at usually better quality. that’s just unbeatable. ”
we get the SAME quality if not better for free.
sharing isnt stealing u fucking dumb shit. copy’ing isnt stealing either. you cant even prove that piracy have reduced the sales of albums. shit, if i like an album i fucking buy it. stop talking bullshit. filesharing is here to stay
lol?!?!?!?
how is this not stealing:
I made an album. it’s for sale. people want it. people buy it.
instead: I made an album. it’s for sale. one person buys it. everyone else gets it for free.
can’t prove piracy reduced sales? if piracy wasn’t happening, I would have something to show for the music I put out. that’s my proof. I put some out. was bought. then I kept coming across people who had it sent to them by someone because they didn’t feel like paying $10. hooray for lost customers. that’s on a miniscule scale with home recording.
imagine when there’s even less empathy for the people putting out the music so nobody thinks twice about DLing it.
time=money, yes? 12 hrs/song (probably more) *10 songs would hopefully = $ in sales. that’s the obvious goal.
with you sharing, time=free. how is it not stealing? lol I don’t understand your thinking. and the time=money thing is just one level of it all.
obviously it’s good that more people are hearing the music because that’s what it’s about, but it causes more bad than good.
@63
1) Filesharing isn’t stealing. Even if current laws say it is, it’s just a big mistake in the current laws and nothing else. Such shit happens, you know. Some 150 years ago slavery was legalized too.
2) If you made an album it doesn’t mean anything at all. You can own the original CD, no problem. But it certainly doesn’t mean that you own all of the copies and the whole world is in your debt.
3) You are a musician and you want money? Give concerts, set up a website to sell music to your fans. Umm… what? Ah, you want a Porsche. Well, you can continue to want it, we have no problems with it.
4) Time=money doesn’t work anymore. Learn to live with it. Or die, if you can’t, frankly noone cares.
5) Filesharing causes bad to exactly who? To fat pigs in record labels? Oh, I’m so concerned. To some crappy pop singers who can only lip-synch? Give me a break.
shit, howcome ur here and not being all busy with ur albums.
like i said, Copy’ing isnt stealing, u know that right.. ”
can’t prove piracy reduced sales? if piracy wasn’t happening, I would have something to show for the music I put out. ”
just because you or some other artist doesnt sell doesnt that mean that your music sucks and noone wouldnt even listen to it if it wasnt for piracy? when did music become all about money, u fucking sellout piece of shit.
and what.. i dont understand ur super advanced math about how time equals money and whatever. lol.. again, copy’ing isnt stealing m8. dont act dumb now. btw if u really are an artist please reveal urself. got some strange feeling ur this fucked up undercover from some riaa company. the battle against piracy is over. the pirates won.
I like money
[quote comment="299975"]
can’t prove piracy reduced sales? if piracy wasn’t happening, I would have something to show for the music I put out. that’s my proof.[/quote]
ROTFL!
Here’s my proof that you are the reason i’m not a millionaire. if you didn’t exist, I would have something to show for the the work I do. that’s my proof.
Really… that isn’t a proof, it’s not even coherent reasoning for Gods sake!
You can’t just postulate something and say thats the proof. Get a grip!
lol ignorance fuels the piracy struggle I guess. that’s like 9th grade math. maybe lower.
but no, once again, I’m not employed by some antipiracy company. what do you mean by ’sell out’? are you 10? I had that attitude when I knew nothing about what’s going on.
I’m not even employed. I’m in a recording arts degree program. I’ll be in the industry within a couple years. I’m trying to spark discussion amongst the people doing the actual stealing to see what can be done to fix what’s happening.
I work right now sometimes doing sidejobs as a freelance mastering engineer/recording engineer and I write my own music. what do you want to know?
what’s inane is that you’re assuming that my music is horrible but first of all, that’s subjective. second, irrelevant because I had sales regardless and people still copied and stole my music. it doesn’t matter how ‘good’ my music is because it still had a market and it was still copied and distributed illegally. this happens on a much larger level when it comes to labels.
there is no undercover when you’re trying to do honest things. lol.
[quote comment="299975"]
[...] I put some out. was bought. then I kept coming across people who had it sent to them by someone because they didn’t feel like paying $10. hooray for lost customers. [...][/quote]
Ok… To me that sounds just like people who wouldn’t have bought your stuff anyway. (didn’t feel like paying $10)
So why would that be a loss to you?
It might be basic math to you, but it’s more like failing grades in basic economics on your part as I see it.
fucksake u ignorant piece of shit. im not stealing when im copying. im not stealing when im downloading, im not stealing when im uploading.
why are u trying to beat a dead horse m8
Sweden is right now the best, what more can be said?
I’m just using MY music as an example. you guys are missing the point. it has nothing to do with my music personally.
it has everything to do with the attitude of the people. not feeling like paying $10 for a CD is what we do every time we go to mininova and get what we want. I don’t know many people in real life who actually buy their music.
it’s a loss because more people pirated my music than bought it just because they didn’t feel like paying. I asked them myself and got the answers. it had nothing to do with how ‘good’ the music was. I’m not even trying to draw the spotlight to my personal situation. it was just an example.
just because you’re not walking into a store and taking the CD and then distributing doesn’t make it not stealing. you’re just justifying using the available technology to commit crimes. lol.
“Love it, hate it, I don’t care. But please don’t for a second think that it will go away or that you can solve it like it is a problem.”
This is EXACTLY what I’ve been thinking. Filesharing isn’t something that can be fixed by suing people left and right. It is the next step in distribution, music on plastic discs isn’t the shit anymore. Until the record labels figure this out and start taking advantage of this fact they’re going to keep losing money. Adapt or die.
I’m just using MY music as an example. you guys are missing the point. it has nothing to do with my music personally.
we are just saying your music as an example.
“it has everything to do with the attitude of the people. not feeling like paying $10 for a CD” i dont want to pay 10usd for a cd i dont like, do u?
“just because you’re not walking into a store and taking the CD and then distributing doesn’t make it not stealing. you’re just justifying using the available technology to commit crimes. lol”
taking a cd from a store without paying is stealing, distributing a file on the internet isnt stealing u know.
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