Finnish rock label Lions Music says illegal file-sharing is “killing independent music and making it impossible for many great musicians to have a chance to release albums and have a musical career even as a part time job.”
Finnish rock label Lions Music is drawing a line in the sand against illegal file-sharing by announcing that it will no longer sign new artists until politicians there have ended illegal file-sharing.
“We are NOT able to sign more artists,” wrote Lars Eric Mattsson, president of the record label, in a statement on the label’s website (since removed). “No demos or masters you send us will be considered for release. We will NOT listen to any mp3 files or check out your websites and we will NOT respond to questions regarding releasing your album.”
Mattsson apparently believes that this will somehow force the govt to act, that Lion’s Music, with its catalog of great artists like Resistance, Satyrian, or Freak Neil Inc., has tremendous power to wield in the country among.
“Our demo policy will not change before our politicians have stopped the P2P sites,” he continues. “Illegal file sharing is not just about stealing from rich major companies. It is about killing independent music and making it impossible for many great musicians to have a chance to release albums and have a musical career even as a part time job.”
The problem with their argument is that numerous studies have concluded that P2P actually increases music consumption. One study in fact, “Consumer Culture in Times of Crisis,” conducted by the BI Norwegian School of Management, the second largest business school in all of Europe, found that file-sharers actually buy 10 times as much music as they download for free.
As Techdirt’s Michael Masnick has argued before, it’s nonsensical for artists to think to “think that there is some sort of obligation to buy.”
Connect With Fans (CwF) + Reason To Buy (RtB) = The Business Model ($$$$)
That’s the real business model, not one where the govt snoops on network traffic and disconnects Internet users to try and compel music fans to buy a given album.
Truth be told, the album is not the consumer packaged good record labels have continued to try and cling to. I can’t blame them, I mean after all why wouldn’t they prefer a $15 sale to a 99 cents sale? But, the problem is that consumers want to be able to buy what they want, where they want it, and delivered in a format of their choosing.
More importantly, P2P is here to stay and any anti-piracy technology a govt like Finland chooses to implement to fight the problem can easily be circumvented in dozens of ways in a matter of seconds.
No offense to Lions Music, but it would be served by focusing on producing quality music and trying to connect with music fans it hopes to make customers of.
Stay tuned.
[Hat Tip]
You know a label has gone off the deep end when they officially announce that not pushing any product of any kind is a viable business model.
Idiots.
“No demos or masters you send us will be considered for release. We will NOT listen to any mp3 files or check out your websites and we will NOT respond to questions regarding releasing your album.”
Well, then, see you later.
Pretty amazing right?
Better still: “The Lion Music roster is currently full. We are not accepting new submissions at this time.”
I mean WTF? It’s not like record labels have finite space.
They make it sound like every band physically lives at the label.
“Drawing a line in the sand”, what a jackass. Good, I hope you die on the vine quickly. You should be thanking Zeropaid and other sites picking up this story, it’s probably the most people that will ever hear of your shit label. EVOLVE or DIE. I’m sick to death of these greedy bastards always crying.