Few talk about the "Swedish musical wonder" anymore, which was strongly connected to successful Swedish artists, but Swedish music is still popular outside of Sweden. Swedish songwriters still hold the fort.
"Sweden is a small country, but Swedish music is big abroad. The foreign proceeds are a receipt showing that Swedish songwriters are of high international class" says Margita Ljungberg, senior adviser at STIM.
"I'm happy that ABBA does so well! " Per Gessle comments to The Daily Roxette.

The most played songs by Swedish composers outside of Sweden 2007:

1. Listen To Your Heart
Per Gessle/Mats MP Persson
2. Dancing Queen
Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus (Buma/Stemra)/Stig Anderson
3. Since U Been Gone
Max Martin/Lukasz Gottwald (Ascap)
4. Hung Up
Madonna (Ascap)/Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus (Buma/Stemra), Stuart
Price (BMI)
5. Who Knew
Max Martin/Lukasz Gottwald (Ascap)
6. Behind These Hazel Eyes
Max Martin/Lukasz Gottwald (Ascap)/Kelly Clarkson (Ascap)
7. It Must Have Been Love
Per Gessle
8. Mamma Mia
Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus (Buma/Stemra)/Stig Anderson
9. Gimme Gimme Gimme
Benny Andersson/Björn Ulvaeus (Buma/Stemra)
10. The One
Max Martin/Brian Littrell (Ascap)

Up to 2,000 jobs at EMI – more than one in three of the workforce – are at risk under a radical restructuring of the music group drawn up by private-equity boss Guy Hands. Thousands of artists will also go from EMI’s 14,000-strong roster. Little is known which artists will have to go at this point.

Robbie Williams is refusing to release his next album until he knows what kind of service an artist of his magnitude could expect from his record company. Williams' manager says that EMI's new CEO, said Guy Hands, is behaving like a plantation owner. Coldplay is also considering leaving EMI while Radiohead and Paul McCartney have already left.

As revealed earlier this year, iTunes became one of the first online stores selling music published by EMI without copy-protection. EMI artists include Roxette, Per Gessle, Marie Fredriksson and Son of a Plumber (links open iTunes Store). Many albums and singles by them are now available as "iTunes Plus." This means that the songs can be burned and copied without restrictions after purchase. The songs also have a better bit rate. Individual songs cost a bit more (in Europe 1.29 Euros instead of 0.99 Euros), but full albums are available for the same price as the protected ones.

The DRM-free releases include the new Per Gessle single, "En händig man/Vet du vad jag egentligen vill?" To get the songs in iTunes Plus format, view an album or a single In iTunes Store and click the iTunes Plus link to see the list of DRM-free songs.

LONDON (Updated) - Wall Street Journal reports that EMI Group will today announce that it will start selling music on Apple's iTunes Store without copy-protection. EMI, the world's third largest music label, will be the first major record company to ditch digital rights management (DRM) from its catalog. The announcement is scheduled to be made in a press conference featuring the Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs.

EMI Group had reportedly attempted to sell DRM-free music in the past but met resistance from online music stores who demanded "insurance" payments to guard against potential increase in piracy and lost sales.

It was already reported earlier this year that EMI will remove copy-protection from its CDs.

Update: EMI has published a press release stating that they and Apple will indeed start to sell DRM-free music on iTunes Store. The DRM-free tracks will have twice the quality compared to the ones with copy-protection, but they will cost €0.30 (or $0.30) more. Old iTunes users will be able to "upgrade" their existing songs to the better quality by paying just the price difference. EMI's DRM-free songs and music videos will be available on iTunes in May. EMI is planning to expand the programme to variety of digital music stores "within the coming weeks."

According to Dutch NVPI, EMI Music stops using copy protection technology on the CDs the company releases. Copy protection, or Digital Rights Management (DRM) as these technologies are also called, have caused a lot of anger among the people who have bought their records legally but are unable to listen to them in the player of their choice. To prevent illegal copying of music, the protected CDs have limitations on the types of players they can be played in. As a side effect, many protected CDs don't work in car stereos.

Now it seems that EMI has realized that the price of adding DRM to the products is too high comparing to its benefits to the company. Recently one of the biggest developers of DRM solutions, MacroVision, stopped the sales of its TotalPlay system. TotalPlay, previously called CDS or Cactus, was used on Roxette's "Ballad Hits."

Boing Boing has an English translation of the article. DRM technologies were not included in the latest European Roxette releases "The Hits," "The RoxBox" and the "One Wish" single, as well as Marie's "Min bäste vän" album.

STOCKHOLM - According to Dinapengar.se Roxette has, as expected, appealed the tax evasion case since the German tour 1995 once more. This time to Regeringsrätten, the highest administrative court in Sweden. Mats Nilemar, Roxette's financial advisor says in the documents filed that this case should be tried once more as the previous court's ruling is based on "apparently serious disregard or a serious mistake."

• Dinapengar.se

STOCKHOLM - A 44-year-old Swedish man is being prosecuted for illegally sharing thousands of music files on Direct Connect network. He’s the first person to appear in court for such activities in Sweden making this a test case for the Swedish copyright law.

  According to the music industry body IFPI, the accused has made 13,000 MP3 files available online. However, the prosecutor is focusing on just four songs: “It Must Have Been Love” by Roxette, “There Must Be An Angel” by Eurythmics, “Sarah” by Mauro Scocco and “Vara vänner” by Jakob Hellman.

  The man claims that he intended to upload just a few individual songs to be shared, but instead uploaded his whole collection of songs. He believes the case against him is unfair. “It’s wrong to find someone guilty for something that millions of people do,” he told Borås Tidning.

• The Local article

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson have been involved in what’s been labeled by the Swedish government as tax evasion.

  After the “Crash! Boom! Live!” tour in Germany back in 1994-95, Per and Marie used their holding company Roxette Productions to account for this income. The Swedish income tax authority disagrees with this bookkeeping method and wants them to pay taxes personally on the income. The authority claims they were employed by tour company EMA Telstar and should therefore pay normal income tax on the 5.6 million kronor (€590,000) paid for the 19 concerts in Germany.

  Per and Marie have been fighting this for almost ten years via their financial advisor Mats Nilemar of Desert AB.

  Per owes 2.3 million kronor in back taxes and Marie owes 2.2 million, according to Swedish press reports.

  When the tax authority first issued it’s claim against them, both Per and Marie appealed the decision to Länsrätten, the first administrative court, which ruled in favor of the government in 2004. Roxette appealed again, to a higher court named Kammarrätten. In rulings issued during the past few days, this court upheld the lower court’s decision.

  Nilemar says that they will appeal once more, this time to Regeringsrätten, the highest administrative court in Sweden. Regeringsrätten will only decide to hear this case if they find it necessary to set a new precedent in this specific part of Swedish tax law. If this high court decides not to take the case, then the current ruling will be considered final.


Additional reporting by Thomas Evensson

By Nate Mook

  Mashboxx, a legal peer-to-peer (P2P) system founded by former Grokster CEO Wayne Rosso, announced Friday it had signed an agreement with music label EMI to license its digital library, including songs from Roxette. Mashboxx is preparing to launch in beta, and has previously signed deals with Sony BMG and Universal.

• Mashboxx

Read more…

LONDON - Warner Music, has rejected a US$4.2 billion (£2.2bn; €3.3bn) bid by rival EMI.

  A merger between the two has long been on the cards, in an attempt to compete more effectively with larger rivals Universal Music and Sony BMG.

  Warner Music said it had carefully examined the offer, but decided it did not benefit shareholders.

  “This is disappointing, as we believe the logic for combining the two businesses is compelling,” said Lorna Tilbian, an analyst with Numis.

  If the two had merged, the combined company would have held about 25% of the recorded music market, based on figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

  Artists recording on the Warner label include Madonna and James Blunt, while EMI’s list includes Coldplay, Robbie Williams and Roxette.

  EMI unsuccessfully bid to buy Warner from its previous parent, Time Warner, in late 2003 before losing out to an investment group led by it’s current CEO. Before that, European regulators blocked a proposed merger of the two media giants.