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On May 19th I received a
telephone call from a woman claiming to be from an organisation
called "MIPI". Apparently MIPI stands for Music Industry Piracy
Investigations, a shadowy organisation funded by the Australian
Record Industry Association. Their whole mission is to threaten and
sue people on behalf of mega-conglomerates like Universal Music. And
that's exactly why this person was ringing - this story all begins
with a threatening phone call.
The woman said that I
was about to receive a very nasty letter from her and she was
ringing to give me advance warning. She said she had been contacted
by IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industries) who
had been contacted by Universal Music Sweden - they had initiated
action against ABBAMAIL and this was the first of many threats we
would receive over the next few months.
The MIPI woman said
that we had been selling unlicensed items on our website and that's
why Universal Music was taking action against us. I explained that
Universal Music had been aware of ABBAMAIL for many years and that
they had used ABBAMAIL resources many times. I also 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. I also explained that the
money raised from these sales was used to promote ABBA via the
ABBAMAIL website, mailing list, forum, newsletters etc. She said
they didn't care about that at all.
I told her I needed
to talk to our lawyer about this. 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!
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.
The MIPI woman told
me I had a week to get back to her or else I would be receiving a
very nasty letter. Her tone was clear: it was threatening and
menacing. I was to do what Universal Music said or there would be
big trouble for ABBAMAIL and myself. Ironically, she didn't even
know my name when she rang - she hadn't even researched the
situation properly.
Rather than being a
case that MIPI was initiating, this is all being directed by
Universal Music in Sweden. We have been advised that the Managing
Director wants ABBAMAIL shutdown at any cost. The issue regarding
the webshop is simply a convenient strategy to try and make ABBAMAIL
close down. Universal Music's plan is to starve ABBAMAIL of funds so
we have to shut down. Even now, when we have complied with their
demands, they have changed their demands and are threatening legal
action.
The correspondence
between ABBAMAIL's lawyer and MIPI has been ongoing throughout the
rest of May, June and July. Universal Music got MIPI to simply
demand that we stop selling everything in the webshop - they didn't
even say what they wanted us to stop selling. Some of the stuff we
sell to hardcore ABBA fans is in no way connected to Universal
Music's corporate greed machine - they have no legal or other
interest in some of these items. 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 - they use lawyers, 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 a political party with a ruthless
dictator.
After initial
responses were made to MIPI, nothing was heard back from them or
Universal Music for almost a month. Our lawyer, who was quite
confused as to why MIPI would be bothering with something as petty
as this, actually thought the matter had ended. How wrong he was!
I also wrote to Görel
Hanser, ABBA's spokesperson and representative early on and fully
advised her of the situation. We have heard that there was a
subsequent meeting between Görel & Mia Segolsson, ABBA's label
manager at Universal Music but we did not hear anything back from
Görel.
The points we made to
Universal Music about ABBAMAIL and what ABBAMAIL has done for them
and for ABBA and for ABBA fans are listed on the right of this page.
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 us of selling large quantities of ABBA
bootlegs.
We just thought "what
drugs are they on?" Organisations like MIPI should be chasing the
criminals who manufacture 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 etc. copies of
officially released ABBA CDs and DVDs like ABBA GOLD - not hounding
and bullying ABBA fans who only sell a small amount stuff that isn't available to
long term ABBA fans who have already bought everything ABBA 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. Our stuff contains material that Universal Music absolutely
refuse to release even though fans are crying out for it. 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 - 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 benefited 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?
Mårten
Aglander, Universal Music
Well apparently the
Managing Director of Universal Music in Sweden hates ABBAMAIL and
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 an
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 "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 to make that happen - including contacting ABBAMAILers and
telling them to stop being associated with ABBAMAIL.
We hear that other
staff at Universal Music Sweden think that this ex-ABBAMAILer is a
troublemaker and only interested in pushing his own interests.
Apparently he'd like a job in the record industry and perhaps thinks
this is his way in the door. But he does have the ear of the only
person that counts at Universal Music and together, they are a
deadly combination.
In the most recent
correspondence with MIPI, our lawyer asked them to name the products
in the webshop that they are upset about. Now remember, these are
Fan CDs and DVDs - put together by fans from old audio and video
cassettes - some up to 30 years old.
They finally replied
and sent a list of what they wanted taken off the website. Some of
the items were strange - it seemed they decided 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 purpose of this action was to starve
us of funds so we'd have to close down. We weren't going to roll
over just because a mega-rich corporation was threatening us as if
we were the littlest kid in the school playground. So 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.
We decided that we
would comply, reluctantly, with Universal Music's request to remove
the listed products from the webshop and we did that last week and
advised MIPI. But of course, the actual products and the webshop are
just the tools that Universal Music and MIPI are using to close down
ABBAMAIL - they've now decided to change their demands again. And
they'll keep changing them and keep threatening us because that's
the whole point of this charade.
They wanted us to
stop selling and stop promoting certain items - we did that. They
want us to give them the supposed "sources" of the CDs and DVDs and
all the supposed stock we have. We 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 people 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. We are 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 items
they wanted, they now want more. They are now saying they want a
list of all the items we have sold over the last 9 years and what we
charged for them and what they were etc. Absolute insanity. 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.
WE NEED YOUR HELP! WE
NEED THE HELP OF EVERY ABBA FAN THAT WANTS TO SAVE ABBAMAIL.
EVERY ABBA FAN THAT
WANTS TO KEEP AN INDEPENDENT VOICE IN ABBA FANDOM.
EVERY ABBA FAN THAT
WANTS TO HELP STOP A GREEDY, RUTHLESS CORPORATION TRYING TO CRUSH AN
ABBA FAN ORGANISATION.
How you can help!
You can help in three
main ways:
1. WRITE EMAILS
AND FAXES PROTESTING THIS ACTION FROM UNIVERSAL MUSIC
We have prepared a list of contact email addresses and fax numbers
for Görel Hanser, Mono Music, Universal Music and others - click
here. Email and fax as many of these as possible and tell them
exactly what you think of Universal's campaign to close down
ABBAMAIL. Tell them to stop bullying ABBAMAIL and ABBA fans. Tell
them how much money you've spent on Universal Music ABBA items,
Mamma Mia! tickets etc. over the years and that you don't like the
idea of ABBA fans being threatened and bullied. And finally, if
you're a regular visitor and user of ABBAMAIL's website and
services, tell them how ABBAMAIL has helped and informed you over
the years. And how ABBAMAIL has kept you informed of official
releases around the world so you can buy them and contribute to
Universal Music's and ABBA's profits.
2. MAKE A
CONTRIBUTION TO HELP ABBAMAIL'S LEGAL COSTS
To date, Universal and MIPI have forced ABBAMAIL to incur almost
$3,000 of legal fees on this case. This is obviously part of their
plan - they have unlimited bank accounts and can keep the action going
indefinitely - they hope to bankrupt ABBAMAIL so we can no longer
fight back. You can make a contribution via our website using PayPal
or a credit card
here
3. DO YOU HAVE ANY
CONTACTS IN THE PRESS - PARTICULARLY IN SWEDEN?
If so, contact them and tell them that ABBA's record company is
bullying and threatening to sue ABBA fans. Tell them that they are
misusing their power to shut down a fan site that has helped them
and helped ABBA fans over many years. |
