While the RIAA sues its customers, and blames filesharing for the decrease in record sales, a coalition of seven independent Swedish record labels explores alternatives that make use of the Internet and filesharing technology.

The increase in music piracy is a signal that customers want something that is simply not available. High quality, DRM-free music that they can buy online for a reasonable price. Filesharing is a virtue, and the coalition of Swedish record labels understands this, as they introduce The Swedish Model. They write:

We in the music industry have shown ourselves unable to follow in this change. Some of us have even waged war against those the music is recorded for – the listeners. The rift between producers and consumers has never been bigger. “The truth is that Internet has provided us with a fantastic grey scale of possibilities! Instead of fighting back we ought to obtain learning from the daily newspaper and the computer game industries. They early realized the superiority of the internet and developed new services there.

This sounds like music to our ears. We’ve said it over and over again here at TorrentFreak, The Internet has changed the way people interact with music. Music is more accessible, more popular and cheaper to distribute. Record labels should embrace filesharing and compete with piracy instead of fighting it, and it seems like that these Swedish labels understand that. Read the rest of this entry »