Finnish Indie Record Label Says It Won't Sign Any New Bands Unless The Gov't Stops Piracy

from the yeah,-that'll-work dept

Tue, Jan 5th 2010 9:10am — Mike Masnick

If you want to see the ultimate in the "entitlement" mentality of the old record labels, check out this report of a Finnish indie label posted an angry rant to its website threatening that it won't sign any new artists until the government somehow stops piracy. Good luck with that plan. Let's see if anyone actually cares. You basically have a business, that refuses to adapt, insisting that it will now go out of business unless the government somehow does the impossible and stops market forces from doing what they do. The proper response is to just let the label go out of business. If it can't adapt, then it should die. Simple as that.

What's really unfortunate, of course, is that I just got back from Norway a couple months ago, and was so impressed with the optimism and enthusiasm from various folks in the music industry around the Nordic countries (including quite a few from Finland). Apparently, the folks from Lion Music didn't attend that event.

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Filed Under: finland, piracy, record labels

31 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:12am

and I won't do any work unless my boss gives me a raise. If I can't get the exact raise that I want I'm not going to work!!!
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The Anti-Mike (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:18am

Welcome to "smart - dumb 2010".
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Dark Helmet (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:24am

Re:
"Welcome to "smart - dumb 2010"."

Is there coffee and donuts? Otherwise, I'm leaving....
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The Anti-Mike (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:34am

Re: Re:
Nope. Just lotttttttts of t-shirts (and they are expensive)
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Ima Fish (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:38am

I can understand a major label pulling some crap like this. But this is allegedly an indie label. As anyone with a brain knows, the biggest obstacle facing a musician is not piracy. It's obscurity. The net helps to eliminate obscurity by allowing musicians to directly interact fans. It also helps music fans directly find new music.

If this label cannot find a way to use the net to help its artists find fans and vice versa, you're right Mike, it should go out of business. It's an epic failure.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:38am

Heh
The chances of unauthorized filesharing being stopped are about as good as the chances of mike visiting the mushroom kingdom. Worse even.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:40am

This sounds familiar
"a Finnish indie label posted an angry rant to its website threatening that it won't sign any new artists until the government somehow stops piracy."

This sounded really familiar to me, but at first I couldn't remember where I had seen this tactic before. Then I remembered...It was at the grocery store, where a five year old who wanted Frosted Flakes threw a temper tantrum and flopped around on the ground, refusing to move with his mother until he got his way.

As I recall, all the kid got for his trouble was a tired body and a slap across the face. Oh, and he also ended up going along with what his mother (i.e. the market) wanted anyway, because after all, her rules win out eventually. I anticipate the same here....
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:42am

They changed their tune. It now says "The Lion Music roster is currently full. We are not accepting new submissions at this time." You can get the full misleading baby cry at archive.org.
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Ryan, 5 Jan 2010 @ 9:50am

Re: This sounds familiar
I immediately thought of the little kid's tactic to hold their breath until they get what they want, which is obviously going to fail rather quickly as they either give up in a minute or two or pass unconscious.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 10:01am

Piracy?
They should have held out for a pony, at least.
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PaulT (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 10:04am

Fantastic. Gives me a chance to work out who the idiots are in the business so that I can avoid giving them money.

I'd not heard of the label before, although I had come across some of their acts. Now that I have, I'm making sure I don't inadvertently give them any money. Sucks for the acts themselves,

I'm also downloading the free legal torrent of Canadian artists mentioned at the bottom of the article. If the acts there are any good, they may get my business instead.

Keep these coming... there's so much new music being produced that I can't possibly buy it all. Best to have stories like this to weed out those who haven't got a clue, and would rather violate civil and fair use rights than actually try to do business in the 21st century.
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Farrell McGovern (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 10:22am

Anti-competitive practices
Lion Music is enacting anti-competitive practices...that is, they have ceased to compete with other record companies for new acts. I am sure that every competitor is cheering right now!

ttyl
Farrell
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Overcast (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 10:28am

AKA: "Temper Tantrum"
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Doug B (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 10:38am

Geesh
Go to the website and check out some of the idiocy that's been posted by the bands:

http://www.lionmusic.com/murderofmusic.html

Quick sample from (a wall of text written by) Edward Vox who appears to be quite intelligent and well-educated on the subject:

...
In the meantime someone invented the internet and the foolish record companies failed to see what was coming. The artists were much quicker on the uptake but by then it was all too late and the by product known as downloading was created or in simple terms taking a heavily compressed file that is probably around 10% of the quality of the actual music created and loading it into your computer and listening to it thorough crappy PC speakers. Down loads are shit, they are shit quality, sound shit and look shit because where is your Derek Riggs artwork in download? There you go, downloads shit I and especially if they are illegal. If you love music then buy the fucking CD like I do.

There ya go. That seems to sum it up perfectly.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2010 @ 10:40am

publicity stunt...we all know that Lion Music exists now.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2010 @ 11:06am

In a related story...
The Dodo has decided to go on a hunger strike to protest its demise.
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NullOp, 5 Jan 2010 @ 11:07am

Idiot!
If you don't do what we say we're gonna hurt ourselves! Are you kidding me? I'd sell tickets to that!
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TSO, 5 Jan 2010 @ 11:17am

In my time...
... we replied to claims like that...

GOOD RIDDANCE.
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mike allen (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 11:24am

Re:
we know they exist but will any one buy?
dont think so
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The Dodo-Hunter, 5 Jan 2010 @ 11:48am

Re: In a related story...
Dodo! Where? And it's hungry? Easy pickings.
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transmaster (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 11:52am

Boo-Hoo-Hoo
Speaking as a someone who has been a musician for over 45 years Lars Eric Mattsson, bossman at Lion, is an idiot. OK so he will not sign any new acts, har-de-har-har. These acts will go somewhere else to market their product. I am thinking of a young man by the name of Adam Young. Living in the basement of his parent's house working at a local Coke-Cola warehouse during the day and because he suffers from insomnia he composed music at night in his home studio. He decided to post one of his songs on iTunes. His musical efforts are published with the name of Owl City. FireFlies quickly became one of the top downloads on iTunes. It is a very tasty synpop tune, I particulary like his lyrical phrasing. He followed this up with others, He now has three CD's out and couple of singles. One of the singles Strawberry Avalanche is Beguiling. Artists no longer need recording companies putting them into the status of a bonded servant to get their works out into the public. Adam Young started with iTunes he has now signed with a Universal Republic studio's he came to this decision already with two independent CD releases under his belt so he should have been able to dicate much of the terms of this agreement. More and more of this sort of thing is happening instead of artists going to a studio and hoping for a contract, the studio has to come to the artist with the hopes of signing them. This is so sweet!
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Lonzo5, 5 Jan 2010 @ 12:34pm

Still not understanding why anyone even deals with record lables anymore.
Wow. Instead of finding a legitimate way to make money, these execs want to use governmental force in order to ensure their oligopoly--not to mention having the audacity to suggest that ceasing to rob musicians of their revenue will somehow hurt the music-listening public. People will make and distribute their own records, and guess what: the record labels will continue to blame piracy (pronounced peer-issy) for their own failure. Meanwhile, the same people who could be buying music in a form they're willing to pay for will instead be paying inflated taxes to fund this doomed war on piracy, which I'd imagine most of them don't even really support.
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Ima Fish (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 12:40pm

Re: Geesh
"That seems to sum it up perfectly."

Yeah, but he's not right. He might subjectivity like the sound of CDs more. But his mere opinion means nothing to the rest of us. Studies show that young people actually prefer the sound of MP3s.

He might love paying for useless artwork, but the rest of the world clearly does not. If we did, we would buy artwork. When was the last time you bought artwork? I never have.

And he seems so utterly ignorant about how to even use MP3s. The quote "thorough crappy PC speakers" is telling. First, PC speakers have improved a fricken lot since the 90s. Second, plenty of people access their MP3 collection through their receivers, surround sound systems, and the like.

Overall he has a very small view of the world. He accepts his view as "the "truth" despite it being purely subjective at best, and completely erroneous at worst.

If Edward Vox was the most "intelligent and well-educated on the subject" person you could find at Lion Music, I don't think the label stands a fricken snowball's chance in hell to survive the tremendous benefits the net has to offer.
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Alan Gerow (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 1:45pm

Re: Geesh
"crappy PC speakers"

Somebody needs to buy 10,000 copies of this guy's CD IMMEDIATELY. I mean, the poor guy can't even afford a moderately priced set of computer speakers. He obviously has to buy the Big Lots computer speakers for $4.99 because of music piracy. How is he going to make music if he can't afford to buy computer speakers made in the past 15 years?!? Oh the humanity.

But seriously, computer speakers made after 1998 are pretty good compared to full-size home stereo speakers from the '80s & early '90s. My Logitech speakers & subwoofer sound far better than my stereos back in high school did.

Not to mention this bit of error in logic: "10% of the quality of the actual music created" ... um, MP3s are 10% of the file size of uncompressed versions (typically), that does NOT mean they are 10% of audio quality ... not to mention the artistic quality of the music has nothing to do with the compression. I'm sure his music would qualify as 0% quality no matter how much or how little you compressed it.

Seriously, that Edward Vox is an idiot. CDs suck, they always have.
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Alan Gerow (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 1:49pm

Re: Still not understanding why anyone even deals with record lables anymore.
Why not start calling it "peeracy" ...
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Ima Fish (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 1:54pm

Re: Re: Geesh
"How is he going to make music if he can't afford to buy computer speakers made in the past 15 years?!?"

I bow before you Alan Gerow, King of the Sarcasm!
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cc, 5 Jan 2010 @ 2:09pm

Re: Re:
Well, Anti-Mike and others like him might ;)
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Henry Emrich (profile), 5 Jan 2010 @ 5:05pm

"Fairly intelligent and well-versed".....riiiiiigh.
1. Where does he come up with the "ten percent" file size thing?

2. "Downloads are shit" -- except, of course, for FLAC, which are totally lossless, and by definition have the same sound quality as the uncompressed CD version.

3. "You don't have the artwork" -- uhh...okay, then. So it's *not* about the music, then? Album "artowk" has always basically been a come-on for the real "content" -- the music (hence the tendency for decades to just absically have a picture of the group, or soloist or whatever, on the cover.) Ony a very few instances of cover-art have actually been clever enough to be interesting in their own right -- and, pardon me for saying the obvious -- even THEN I still wouldn't buy an empty CD jewel-box or record sleeve *just* for the cover-art.

Like I said in the other thread, somebody should really check if this label is a member of the local equivalent of the RIAA. If they *are*, then they're not "independent" by any stretch of the imagination -- even if they're not *directly* some kind of sub-unit owned by one of the major labels, they are STILL in bed with the major-label lobbying arm.

Less idiotic, tuneless poseurs, I say.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2010 @ 8:41pm

Re: Re: Geesh
"Yeah, but he's not right. He might subjectivity like the sound of CDs more. But his mere opinion means nothing to the rest of us. Studies show that young people actually prefer the sound of MP3s. "

Well, what you have to do is you have to have him close his eyes and listen to one and the listen to the other and see if he can tell the difference.
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Chris, 7 Jan 2010 @ 4:18am

Of course it's so simple, just get the government to say stop illegally downloading music and the people will obey. Check out the progression of Indie music over the last decade here http://bit.ly/7e2SfY some really great bands are featured.
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Jared Brandt, 29 Jan 2010 @ 8:59am

Right on!
Bravo!

Finally, somebody has enough guts to stop catering to all these thieves who steal music.

Eventually, piracy will cause the entire music and film industries to collapse. It is already happening. Every single Major Retailer in the U.S. is dramatically reducing floorspace dedicated to Music Sales.

We at Brandt Morain Studios also refuse to cater to thieves.
We will not release Free MP3's. We will not give away our hard work. We will not sell easy-to-steal MP3 downloads.

We will wait until all these thieves are brought to justice. Impossible, you say?? Governments can never keep track of all piracy, you say?? Well, there was a time when the IRS didn't exist.

Jared Brandt
Brandt Morain Studios
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