Official Ares Free Download

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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