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‘Dramatic’ rise in Swedish music sales

p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- Record labels are “pointing to the dramatic rise in music sales in Sweden, just months after the country introduced anti-piracy laws, as evidence of what a similar crackdown in Britain could do to the flagging market,” says the Guardian.

Well —-  not really.

The newspaper is but one of the means selected by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’IFPI (International Federation of Phornographic Industry) as a vehicle for its latest bullshit release.

Sweden, once seen as a country where freedom of expression was respected but which is now  a wholly owned corporate entertainment industry copyright enforcement division, was the excuse.

“Figures from the record labels association IFPI Sweden show revenues rose 18% in the first nine months of this year, a significant reversal from seven consecutive years of decline,” says the story in a flat statement, going on, “Much of the rise came after April’s implementation of an anti-piracy law and a ruling against the operators of The Pirate Bay, the filesharing site.”

Now, “Music executives in Britain are looking to Sweden’s experience for signs that their own tumbling sales can be stemmed by new laws outlined by the government last week,”  says the story, stating:

“Business secretary Lord Mandelson’s digital economy bill includes controversial plans to send warning letters to the most flagrant unlawful filesharers and paves the way for persistent offenders to have their broadband suspended from 2011.”

And, “We hope that even the announcement of the new legislation will have some educational effect by reminding people illegal downloading is against the law and that there’s a huge range of legal services out there,” the story has the BPI mouthperson Geoff Taylor saying.

Riiiiight.

However, “If the music industry wants to build a movement of people that are angry with the way they are being treated they are going about it the right way,” the Guardian has Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, saying, and questioning “how much the Swedish figures reflected a legal change” in Sweden.

Killock “believes music companies and other rights holders are already alienating consumers”, it says, continuing he points out Sweden’s Pirate party, which wants to legalise internet filesharing, has won a seat in the European parliament”and his own group, which is running a “say no to disconnection” campaign, has seen its membership grow by 20% in the last two months, to just over 1,000 people.

Filesharing “is not the root of the problem,” Killock decares in the story.

“It’s a symptom not a cause. It’s a symptom of a lack of relevant services.”

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Guardian – Sweden sees music sales soar after crackdown on filesharing, November 23, 2009
controversial plans – Hollywood touts ACTA, November 22, 2009

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 11:17 am and is filed under Music, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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5 Responses to “‘Dramatic’ rise in Swedish music sales”

1. Kyle Says:
   November 24th, 2009 at 11:36 am

   Goddamn I wish people would get more riled by this, stop buying every bullshit manufactured track that comes out of the woodwork and actually fight this corporate movement, music has stopped being about the music and instead just about turning a profit.

2. Reader's Write Says:
   November 24th, 2009 at 1:51 pm

   These parasites are such a pack of liars!

   Ya right 18% rise. Sure! My Butt!

   Who still believe these parasites anyway with all the lie and all the criminal craps they did?

   The entertainment corporate criminal the master of BS!

   18% rise? Ha!

   First the spectrial against the pirate Bay had no effect whatsoever not just on P2P in general but on the pirate bay and Bitorrent in particular save for making it even stronger and more unstoppable (Tracker-less Torrents, magnets, Pirate Bay tracker duplicates, anonymous proxies) and for boosting dramatically the pirate party.

   Not only that but after they passed this nasty copyright law the P2P Swedish traffic bounced back to above what it was once everyone realized that the law could not be enforced and that they were plenty of counter measures available against the internet entertainment roguenet.

   Moreover even if P2P was to stop completely it will not make the customers come back buying their shit because they are pissed off like hell.

   This is a business in which you have to be cool. Obviously these parasites are not cool and their death is ineluctable as a result. Beside their production is mostly crap and once the hypnotic effect of BS marketing is gone people take it for what it is : Shit!

   They can not win because we are the one who give them the money. Even thought they are still trying to extort us there is no way they can force us to pay them. NO WAY! We will rather shoot them all instead.

   Continue the boycott! They are almost dead!

   No CD, no DVD, no download no Movie theater!

   The stronger the boycott the faster we will get ride of the problem and the faster we can rebuild.

   Without them!

   No business ever declared war on their customers and survived. NONE!

   …………………./´¯/)
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3. RIAA Hater Says:
   November 25th, 2009 at 4:34 am

   Agreed with RW. Continue the boycott! No more money for you greedy corporate fucks!

   …………………./´¯/)
   ………………..,/¯../
   ………………./…./
   …………./´¯/’…’/´¯¯`·¸
   ………./’/…/…./……./¨¯\
   ……..(’(…´…´…. ¯~/’…’)
   ………\……………..’…../
   ……….”…\………. _.·´
   …………\…………..(
   …………..\………….\…

4. Eric Says:
   November 25th, 2009 at 10:17 pm

   Wait, they said there was an increase of 18% since… what? A law being passed?

   But the file sharers haven’t stopped, and the music buyers (which could even include some of the same people) haven’t magically gotten more spending money…

   And a ruling against TPB didn’t stop it either. It still exists (in fact, just yesterday they repaired their broken tracker).

   Sounds like they made up the 18% figure, or else are doing some very creative accounting.

5. Eric Says:
   November 25th, 2009 at 10:19 pm

   Oops, I meant they repaired their broken search routine. The tracker is still down because of the new magnet links making it unnecessary.

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