- An Australian ABBA site has been threatened with legal action unless it gives Big Four Organized Music cartel member Vivendi Universal, based in France, information on fans who allegedly, "bought or supplied unauthorised or 'bootlegged' live recordings via the site," says the Sydney Morning Herald, going on:
"Abbamail.com, owned by Graeme Read and Grant Whittingham - who also founded the Swedish pop group's Australian fan club in 1976 - has published online news of the band for about nine years."
Vivendi Universal, together with the other cartel members, Warner Music (US), EMI (UK) and Sony BMG (Japan, Germany), are using their various alphabet organizations to try to sue music lovers into buying formulaic, over-priced product.
They're failing, and failing miserably. But they use the mainscream media to carry disingenuous messages from the likes of RIAA truth adjustor Mitch Bainwol to claim they're making headway.
Over in Australia, they're using their MIPI in a bid to hammer Read and Whittingham into compliance.
MIPI is short for Music Industry Piracy Investigations which until very recently, was run by Oz ex-detective sergeant Michael Speck.
By an amazing coincidence, Speck now works for Altnet, one of the companies associated with Sharman Networks, the Australian owner of the deeply despised p2p application, Kazaa, whom Speck was pursuing on behalf of the Big Four.
Sharman, which until very recently was being sued in Australia, has now crossed to the Dark Side.
Meanwhile, here's what Read and Whittingham have to say on their new site, UniversalGreed.com.
And when you've finished , keep going to see what The Wiz has this to say on the situation.
Since May, Universal Music have been running a campaign to close down ABBAMAIL. They have been threatening legal action and trying to frighten ABBAMAIL's owners into closing ABBAMAIL. Universal Music's vendetta against ABBAMAIL is an outrageous abuse of corporate power. You can read the full story here and also find out how to protest and help save ABBAMAIL!
It began on May 19th when ABBAMAIL's Graeme Read received a telephone call from a woman claiming to be from an organisation called "MIPI". Apparently MIPI stands for Music Industry Piracy Investigations. Having no knowledge of "MIPI", some research on the internet showed it to be a shadowy organisation funded by the Australian Record Industry Association. MIPI's whole mission seems to revolve around threatening and suing people on behalf of mega-conglomerates like Universal Music. And that's exactly why this person was ringing - the story began with a threatening phone call.
The woman said that I was about to receive a very nasty letter from her and MIPI and she was ringing to give me advance warning. She said she had been contacted by IFPI (MIPI's international equivalent) who had been contacted by Universal Music Sweden to initiate action against ABBAMAIL, one of the most important and long-term ABBA fan websites on the internet.
This initial phone call was the first of many threats ABBAMAIL would receive over the next few months.
MIPI claimed that ABBAMAIL had been selling unlicensed items on our website and that's why Universal Music was taking action against us. We explained to MIPI that Universal Music had been aware of ABBAMAIL for many years and that they had used ABBAMAIL's resources in many ways to help them with their commercial ABBA releases.
It was also clearly explained that the only products we sold on the website were historical recordings that Universal Music Sweden had refused for years - despite countless requests from fans - to release. It was also explained that the money raised from these sales was used to promote ABBA and Universal Music's products via the ABBAMAIL website, mailing list, forum, newsletters etc. The MIPI representative said they didn't care about that at all.
So Universal Music and its employees have been happy enough to exploit the resources and people of ABBAMAIL for many years in order to fatten their corporate profits - but now they feel they've sucked everything they want from us, they are hell-bent on closing ABBAMAIL down.
Universal Music Sweden has a history of bullying ABBA fans - several years ago they tried to shut down (and succeeded in many cases) a number of fantastic sites built by ABBA fans. ABBAMAIL's co-owner Grant Whittingham was also threatened with legal action by Frida's lawyers just for registering a domain name!
The MIPI woman advised that we had one week to get back to her or else we would be receiving a very nasty letter. Her tone was clear: it was threatening and menacing. I was to do what Universal Music said immediately or there would be big trouble for ABBAMAIL and myself. She did not seem to be aware of the history of ABBAMAIL and Universal Music's involvement or the fact that we had provided assistance to them.
She did make it very clear that, rather than being a case that MIPI was initiating, this was being directed by Universal Music in Sweden.
Subsequently, we have found out through other sources that apparently Mårten Aglander, the Managing Director of Universal Music Sweden wants ABBAMAIL shutdown at any cost: the issue regarding the webshop and the products is simply a convenient strategy to try and force ABBAMAIL's closure. Universal Music's plan is to starve ABBAMAIL of funds so we have to shut down. This has been proven by the fact that, even when we have complied with their demands, they immediately changed their demands and continued to threaten legal action.
Correspondence between ABBAMAIL's lawyer and MIPI has been ongoing throughout the rest of May, June and July.
Initially, Universal Music asked MIPI to simply demand that we stop selling everything in the ABBAMAIL webshop - they didn't even specify which items they had a problem with. Some of the items contain material that Universal Music has no legal, moral or other interest in whatsoever. But they decided to "have a go" and thought we'd be so frightened we'd stop selling everything and close down completely.
This is the way the music industry operates in 2006 - using lawyers, industry organisations, anything they can get their hands on to threaten and intimidate people. They operate on the basis that people will be so frightened by receiving a legal letter or a menacing telephone call that they will immediately fall over and do what they are told. It is like 1930s fascism in a modern setting - only thesedays the perpetrators are greedy corporations, not political parties and ruthless dictators.
ABBAMAIL wrote to Görel Hanser, ABBA's spokesperson and representative early on and fully advised her of the situation. We requested that she get Universal to stop this crazy action. We have heard that there was a subsequent meeting between Görel & Mia Segolsson, ABBA's label manager at Universal Music. However nothing was heard back from Görel.
The points we made to Görel about ABBAMAIL and what ABBAMAIL has done for ABBA and ABBA fans, were also made to MIPI/Universal Music through correspondence from our lawyer. The facts and points we made can be seen by clicking here.
After almost a month, our lawyer finally received a response from MIPI (which they faxed to the wrong place - the second time they'd done this!) flatly denying that Universal Music had ever received any help from ABBAMAIL. They also accused ABBAMAIL of selling large quantities of ABBA bootlegs.
How they came to this conclusion or who provided such insane information we can only speculate on. Organisations like MIPI should be chasing the criminals who manufacture tens of thousands of copies of officially released CDs and DVDs (like ABBA GOLD for example) - not hounding and bullying ABBA fans who sell a small amount of stuff that isn't available to long term ABBA fans who have already bought everything that has been officially released.
ABBAMAIL's webshop has, for 9 years and with Universal Music's knowledge, made available a number of Fan produced CDs and DVDs containing all the really bizarre stuff that only appeals to really hard-core ABBA fans. ABBAMAIL's products contain material that Universal Music absolutely refuse to release even though fans have spent years crying out for it.
These are the ABBA fans who have already bought every version of the same old "greatest hits" CDs and DVDs that Universal continues to release year after year. How many times can an ABBA hits CD and DVD be released with the SAME SONGS? Just count how many times Universal Music has released the same stuff over and over again with a different name? Sometimes including one semi-interesting track so that ABBA fans have to go out and pay full price to buy the same songs they already own over and over and over and over.
We found out in the early days that ABBA's record company didn't mind ABBAMAIL's activities because they knew that it didn't conflict with their products and that ultimately it benefitted them. They realised that ABBA fans needed to be kept interested in ABBA so they would be more willing to buy the next incarnation of GOLD or MORE GOLD or FOREVER GOLD or LOVE SONGS or THE DEFINITIVE COLLECTION etc. Their primary concern was that we didn't make a "big deal" out of it - as long was we kept it low key and just sold to the hard-core fans, they were fine with it.
What has changed?
Well apparently the Managing Director of Universal Music in Sweden has made it his personal mission to close us down - he won't stop until he achieves this.
To do this, he has enlisted the help of am ex-member of ABBAMAIL's Internet Mailing List and former friend of Graeme Read and Grant Whittingham. This person is now feeding all sorts of supposed "information" to Universal's MD to inflame the situation further. The ex-friend is also hell-bent on closing ABBAMAIL down and is doing everything he can - including contacting ABBAMAILers and telling them to stop being associated with ABBAMAIL - to make that happen.
We hear that other staff at Universal Music Sweden think that this ex-ABBAMAILer is a troublemaker and is only interested in pushing his own interests. But he does have the ear of the only person that counts at Universal Music and together, they are a deadly combination.
In recent correspondence with MIPI, ABBAMAIL's lawyer asked them to name the products in the webshop that they were upset about. Now remember, these are CDs and DVDs - put together by fans from old audio and video cassettes - some up to 30 years old. The average Mr. Joe-Public is not interested in buying a 5th generation recording of a TV performance of Agnetha singing in a foreign language! It's only of interest to the hardcore ABBA fans.
MIPI replied and sent a list of what they wanted taken off the website. Some of the items were strange - it seemed they wanted anything with an ABBA logo removed from the shop.
Since Universal Music Sweden & MIPI's fear and intimidation campaign began, we realised that we needed to make sure ABBAMAIL had sufficient income to survive. After all, the whole purposes of this action was to starve us of funds so we'd have to close down. ABBAMAIL was not going to roll over just because a mega-rich corporation was threatening us as if we were the littlest kid in the school playground. Bullies only get away with terrorising people if no-one is prepared to stand up to them.
Reluctantly, we instituted a monthly fee for subscription to ABBAMAIL's internet mailing list. ABBAMAIL's list for fans has been free for 9½ years but we could no longer provide all the services we provide to ABBA fans for free.
Luckily we have some very supportive people on ABBAMAIL's list and they have been more than happy to pay a monthly fee. Many of them have been on the list for 6, 7 and 8 years and it has become a real community. Many of them have contributed information and historical information to Ian Cole and Carl Magnus Palm that has formed the basis of official ABBA releases over recent years.
After receiving the list of products from MIPI, ABBAMAIL also reluctantly decided that we would comply with Universal Music's request to remove the listed products from the webshop. This happened last week and our lawyer advised MIPI immediately.
But of course, as we said, the actual products and the webshop aren't the real issue here. They're just the tools that Universal Music and MIPI are using to close down ABBAMAIL. After removing the list products from the ABBAMAIL website, Universal Music and MIPI have now changed their demands again. And they'll keep changing them and keep threatening us because that's the whole point of this charade.
They wanted ABBAMAIL to stop selling and stop promoting certain items - we did that. They then wanted ABBAMAIL to give them the supposed "sources" of the CDs and DVDs and all the supposed stock we have. ABBAMAIL's lawyer advised them that...
(a) we don't have any stock because this is a fan organisation selling items to small base of hard-core ABBA fans - we just make up the stuff when fans order it.
(b) the "sources" are old video tapes and old audio cassettes - often generations down in quality - supplied by ABBA fans from private collections. For example, cassette tape recordings from fans who took a clunky portable tape recorded to an ABBA concert in 1975 or 1977 and recorded it on a cheap, low-quality cassette tape and then did copies for some other fans.
ABBAMAIL is not going to give copies of these old videos and audios to MIPI or Universal Music. They belong to ABBA FANS - REAL ABBA FANS. They are part of fan memorabilia collections. The thought of delivering this stuff to MIPI's offices is quite insane.
So now, even though we've done what they asked us to do and stopped selling the times they wanted, they now want more. They are now saying they want a list of all the times we have sold over the last 9 years and what we charged for them and what they were etc. They want to know who bought them and when and so on and so forth. Absolute madness. Absolute corrupt power being used outrageously to sue ABBA fans.
MIPI are now saying that if we don't give them this information, they are going to get Universal Music Sweden to sue us directly. And that is why this website has been created.
Because it is time stop sitting back and letting this ruthless, greedy corporation walk all over ABBA fans and ABBAMAIL. ABBAMAIL has tried to do the right thing but that's not enough - it won't be enough until we cease operating our mailing list, our website and all of our other services.
And that would just be the beginning. Universal Music wants to control everything through the official abbasite.com. The site, you might remember, which was at the centre of homophobia allegations a couple of years ago. Universal has already tried to shut down other fan sites and if they succeed with ABBAMAIL, no doubt they will be emboldened to try and threaten and frighten even more fans.
Why Björn, Benny, Agnetha, Frida and Görel Hanser are not preventing Universal Music from this madness we have no idea. Universal Music is a 50% financial investor in Mamma Mia!, the musical, so perhaps that might explain it. ABBAMAIL believes the members of ABBA are very much mistaken in allowing this action to be done in their name.
How you can help!
This campaign needs the help of every ABBA fan and every concerned person who:-
- Wants to save ABBAMAIL - Wants to keep an independent voice in ABBA fandom - Wants to help make a stand against a ruthless and greedy corporation trying to crush ABBA fans
(1) The MIPI is targeting a fan club, no doubt a major centre of piracy, right up there with Joe's Garage which used to sell 'pirated' 90 minute g-tapes in 1979. Is there a loss here to the copyright owner? Forgetting the 'The Net is promotional' argument, there can't have been many sales made for such a niche product. Are there enough sales lost here to justify the threatened federal court action? And by the way, how much did the record companies spend on their last federal court action?
(2) Context - Australia was ABBA's biggest market in the world on a per capita basis. There's a genuine and massive fan base here. Did the fan club promote or hurt sales?
(3) A bootleg is not a pirate product, and even the IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) has acknowledge the differences. The MIPI, associated with the IFPI and an Australian anti-piracy unit, seems to have forgotten this. [Bootlegs - these are the unauthorised recordings of live or broadcast performances. They are duplicated and sold - often at a premium price - without the permission of the artist, composer or record company - IFPI]
(4) The only real way to prove a bootleg is to get the artist to complain. There doesn't appear to be an artist complaining here - certainly not ABBA.
(5) Surely ABBA haven't assigned the rights of their live performances to Universal? Or in the alternative, MIPI can't be able to prove that these guys don't have permission, the proof necessary under the bootleg provisions.
(6) Look at the MIPI's letters. There's nothing which asserts the legal basis for their right to even act in this matter. The fan club should just take their word because they say so?
(7) A rep from Universal Sweden is quoted. So what's the relationship between them and the MIPI anyway? Why not the MIPI? Why not Universal Australia? Who's paying the bills anyway?
(8) Is this a classic example of using a hammer to squash a gnat? You can bet the MIPI were surprised that the other side could even afford legal representation. They probably expected them to fold on the spot like so many before. It looks like the fan club is using Marsdens, a well known western suburbs law firm who are known for representing underdogs.
(9) What is a fan site anyway? A place where fans and supporters meet and collect information on their favourite artists. I guess the MIPI has decided it doesn't need to keep fans on side as a source of information, anymore. Everyone knows fan sites are the best source on real pirates. But if you get them offside, they'll probably have second thoughts on helping.
Years ago it was triads and global pirates. Now it's fan clubs.
The MIPI really is still the rotweiller of the music industry.
