Ifpi Sweden fights online piracy with an open letter
Written by tevensso on April 18, 2005 to Music Business.
STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Ifpi (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) issued today an open letter that has been published in several Swedish newspapers. The purpose of the open letter is to address the copyright issues and downloading. 112 Swedish artists have signed the letter, among them Per Gessle, Göran Fritzon, Clarence Öfwerman and Lasse Lindbom.
“For us artists it’s totally unacceptable to have a debate where the general meaning is that it is OK for people to steal records and films, or for that matter the newspaper Expressen, in a store. But somehow some leading voices think it’s OK to steal via the Internet,” reads an excerpt from the letter.
Other artists like Håkan Hellström and Nanne Grönwall feel that an open letter from Ifpi is the wrong way to do it. They are both happy that people want to download their music and say that the music industry should try other ways. Nanne says to Expressen “This is just about the same thing like when the cassette tape arrived. The record companies blasted out that this was the death of the record industry. And it surely wasn’t.” Anders Nunstedt, pop columnist of Expressen, says that the record companies should see Internet downloading as the solution, not the problem.
- Ifpi letter PDF (In Swedish)
- Nunstedt’s column (In Swedish)
Other articles with the same topic
- Billboard mentions Roxette (February 26, 2011)
- Citigroup takes control of EMI (February 1, 2011)
- Kobalt signs Roxette in North America (January 13, 2011)
- Record "The Look" and win $5,000 shopping spree (August 11, 2010)
- EMI Music triples full-year earnings (May 8, 2009)
26 comments
Rox1_4ever said on April 18, 2005 18:48:
I agree whit you Per!!!
i can´t understand how you can download music (if you can buy it) I think that the artists deserve to get they money...
Staffany said on April 18, 2005 19:03:
Dear Per and IFPI:
If you are against the online piracy, release the records everywhere, not just in Europe.
Thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart!
GT_85 said on April 18, 2005 21:13:
Are you guys against buying used cd´s too? The record companies doesn´t get anything from that. SOme record-companies hates it, Nintendo even tried to stop it. To but used games.
jobarth said on April 18, 2005 21:38:
Why do you think, CDs are too expensive? For example you buy the GT FFF Album for 16.95 EUR. You pay only one time this price and you have maybe for decades pleasure and joy with this album. Tell me one thing that enjoys you for 16.95 maybe your whole life?
frisso said on April 18, 2005 22:25:
well what if you the original cd but it’s broken because you played it to much
i’m not gonna buy a new one!!
they have to make cd’s better and cheaper too.
and the same thing happend years ago when the cassette came out. i think that it’s all blowing out of proportion.
one other thing.
alot of per and marie cd’s is not available in other countries. so it’s not that strange that people download it.
and internet can also help to find new artists.
i found alot of great artist on emule.
and gone to their concerts that makes money for them too. and i’m sure i’m not the only one
Strest said on April 19, 2005 05:29:
It’s hard for someone not from Sweden to know this, but a lot of those artists had their peak in the 60’s and 70’s and are more or less forgotten about nowadays.
I hardly think they lose that much money, or any money at all, by Internet piracy.
And genres like World Music & Jazz (except for the biggest artists) is probably not that popular among those who download music...
Personally I find that list a joke. For example, Amy Diamond. She’s a 12 year old kid with ONE single on her discography.
Yeah I’m sure she’ll be bankrupt soon due to the Internet piracy...
And I’m getting really tired that they call it stealing. It’s wrong, but you can’t compare downloading music or movies or whatever with stealing a physical object.
You can steal a harddrive with music on it, but you don’t steal music when downloading it.
You should, of course, buy the music you like, but if you aim for a younger audience like Daniel Lindström, Markoolio, Da Buzz, E-Type etc you shouldn’t be surprised that they won’t buy your records since they don’t have that much money.
AURYTE said on April 19, 2005 13:59:
I disagree with you Strest - downloading is another form of stealing. The thing is that you neither pay money when stealing a CD from a store, nor downloading.
One the other hand, I partly agree with the people who said that it is quite expensive to buy CD’s. For me, as a student from Lithuania, even 16.95 EURO is quite a lot. And really, Per, Marie, Gyllene Tider’s CDs are not available in many countries. If you want to buy them, you have to do it per online shops. In this case you have to pay for shipping and this makes an item more expensive. I believe that many fans, who love Roxette and related music, even if they download some songs, later buy them.
And at last, there are many songs on the net which were not released officially.
PS Why hasn’t Marie signed this letter?
eBay said on April 19, 2005 14:38:
Sorry, really can not support Per’s opinion in this... how easy it is for a stinking rich person to just sign a letter like this one.. further, I think that the problem actualy lies much deeper.. as mentioned previously in this discussion, make records available to more countries then..
The artist gets the money anyways, of their record deal..
Strest said on April 19, 2005 15:00:
AURYTE: It’s wrong, but you still can’t call it stealing. If I’d go to a store and steal a newspaper, then the shop would definitely lose that money.
If I downloaded (“stole”) Mazarin from someone on the Internet no-one would surely lose any money since the person I took it from still has it.
Therefor it’s not called theft.
Right now I wouldn’t even be commiting a crime in Sweden, but even after it get’s illegal I still wouldn’t be charged with theft.
It may not seem like a big difference, but once you call it stealing you can count every mp3 that’s get downloaded as a loss since you actually have to lose something when something gets stolen.
But in reality most of the songs that gets downloaded don’t mean a lost purchase anyway.
That’s the difference.
I can honestly say I doubt I’ll ever buy music online unless I have to (= it don’t get released on CD) or if it’s flatrate.
I prefer having a pressed CD over a burnt CD-R...
plectrum said on April 19, 2005 15:09:
what about if you are searching hmv,virgin or other record stores for older stuff but cannot find it,for example i was looking for years for a ritchie valens cd & couldn’t find one anywhere so i admit i downloaded an album of his from winmx,if i could’ve bought it i would have because i don’t like the idea of defrauding a company but i had no choice
abysmo said on April 19, 2005 15:28:
All my Rox studio albums are originals, but thank God for internet downloading. Where could I find all remixes, demos and other not officialy released songs?
Bunio said on April 19, 2005 22:13:
Strest- you don’t get it. It’s not about stealing from someone.
The problem is: Per/Marie are artist, they are recording new songs to earn money, this is their job! So when you download music you won’t buy original cd. It means that they won’t get money for their hard work. It’s like getting a painting from a painter without paying :) In other words it’s stealing.
But there is also another problem. Not everyone has money for every single or other release especially when he lives in poland (like me). i can’t afford every single immediately after the release. I have to wait and save every penny to buy per/gt/marie music (in the last 2 years there was HUGE amount of cds/dvds to buy), so i need a lot of time to buy everything. I have 1 single from The change, 2 from Mazarin, 1 of F5F and to be honest i don’t know when i will buy the rest (hope in 2005, but it’s unlikely). I must admit that i have dowloaded few songs from singles that i don’t have at this moment, but i will certainly buy them when i will have occasion and money. So for me it’s temporary solution.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that piracy is OK, in fact it’s very bad, but what we can do? Sometimes there is no other option.
P.S.
sorry for my english
Oldag75 said on April 20, 2005 11:45:
If you think it’s okay to pirate music off the web, then you must believe it’s just fine to perform your own job for no pay – to work for free. That’s what you are requiring artists to do, when you steal their music.
Strest said on April 20, 2005 15:09:
Bunio: It’s not stealing unless you would’ve bought it otherwise, and even then the technical term is not stealing.
Oldag75 said on April 20, 2005 17:11:
If the owner is not voluntarily giving something to you, and you are not paying for it, that is called... stealing.
Strest said on April 21, 2005 00:45:
Exactly!
However that would not be the case here since the file itself is owned by the person who created the file.
It’s the content of the file which would be illegal to spread but the file itself is DEFINITELY NOT owned by the artist.
For exemple, if I create a copy of Per G’s Mazarin as flac or ogg or mp3 or whatever.
While I cannot sell it or spread it outside the circle of my closest friends and family, he’s (Per G) not allowed to use the files I created.
Also, what it’s called and not called is pretty much irrelevant.
It’s what the law states which is relevant.
Mitya said on April 21, 2005 14:01:
law and justice are two different things & sometimes they don‘t coincide.
Emil__BG said on April 21, 2005 17:24:
Oldag75
if Xxxxxxx ambassador pays the driver from his own country 3000 euro per month and 6 weeks hollydays but pays the driver from the country in which he works 300 euro and 2 weeks hollydays...
Is it stealing or is it just market??
Do you think that there will be any citizen of this country who will believe this ambassodor if he try to teach them about human rights?
In many countries becouse of EMI’s politics and small salary most of the people have only 2 choices–
1.never listen this song
or
2.to download it from internet..
choices 2 is the better one–cos in that case the artist has some hope -if he is good - that someday someone will buy his record..
;-)
eBay said on April 22, 2005 07:09:
@Bunio
You really can not compare a music artist to a painter. A painter does not sign a contract to actually release his paintings. Music artists sign contracts and get millions for that alone!
Santi said on April 22, 2005 08:31:
The thing is that record companies are scared to death because if CD distribution disappears they are not needed anymore. If online distribution works, then what’s good about them??
They should compete in quality, produce something really worth paying, not the crappy booklets with 4 so-called artistic pictures that go nowhere that you can see in 95% of the releases. To add extras that MP3s per se can not give you. It’s like globalization in the rest of products. We in Europe MUST produce very high quality stuff to sell it in our own shops because we can not compete in price, due to our living standards. Actually, the strange is the music industry, that is a kind of organized “mafia” that want the control over everything, even if you can use their record while you’re walking or not. This is very paranoid.
On the other hand, musicians know that recording is just half (and usually the most tedious) part of the job. They won’t get much richer for selling you records, they get evaluated by the company, that’s different. Probably around 5% of the money you pay does actually go to the taxes the artist has to pay, and another 4% to the sportive car they want to buy, while nearly 1% of those 16 Euro would actually support their existence.
Artists should focus on what artist usually like the most, that is touring, where you can’t cheat (you can copy such a thing, but a music lover would always prefer to go and see than to download a very crappy performance) and music downloading is actually a great way to make yourself known and hit potential listeners. I actually think that it takes a quite conformist artist to sign such a “open letter”.
Moreover, laws are made by communities, and you can not criminalize the entire world for the sake of 10 Ferrari drivers. This is quite stupid. It’s something you can not stop... “you can’t fight the moonlight”. It’s there and it won’t disappear because it’s convenient, cheaper, private and difficult to track. You have to adapt, and filling jails with adolescent music lovers is not a solution, it’s adding another problem to the matter.
purplemedusa said on April 18, 2005 14:29:
Urm... I don’t understand the article... Per against piracy? Terrably ambigious!