As featured in Musikindustrin

"Eva Karman Reinhold, chairwoman of the Swedish Independent Music Producers (SOM) and board member of IMPALA, writes in a debate post.

The music industry is entering a period of accelerating corporate consolidation, and international acquisitions are now reshaping Europe and Sweden as well. Universal Music Group's (UMG) proposed acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings, valued at 775 million dollars, risks cementing unhealthy market dominance and creating structural dependency that undermines the independent music sector. When we raise these concerns, we often hear familiar rhetorical counterarguments:
"The market is free." "Anyone can release music." "Competition is strong."
But what looks like choice on the surface is, in practice, increasing reliance on infrastructure controlled by a shrinking number of major companies.

From Freedom of Choice to Structural Dependency

UMG's subsidiary Virgin Music Group (VMG) and its allies have attempted to downplay the issue, arguing that competition is strong because many independent actors already use distributors owned by the majors: Universal, Warner, and Sony. But that is precisely the problem. Over the past decade, most large independent digital distributors have been absorbed by the majors: Phonofile, The Orchard, AWAL, Essential, Finetunes, Ingrooves, PIAS – and now FUGA/Downtown.
The consolidation trend spans every part of the industry, and Downtown also has a central role as an independent music publisher. When multinational companies control the infrastructure, "choice" stops being freedom — it becomes structural dependency.

Independent Labels Are Not Hobbyists

Another argument in this debate – expressed by PIAS co-founder Kenny Gates, among others – is that organizations like IMPALA represent only a "tiny fraction" of the independent market. This is only plausible if one accepts a convenient but misleading simplification: equating professional independent labels with the vast DIY scene of self-releasing artists and/or functional music companies.
Yes, over 100,000 tracks are uploaded every day. But equating that mass of uploads with labels doing professional A&R, marketing, and long-term artist development is a form of erasure.

Professional independent labels are not hobbyists – they invest their own money in someone else's art, take financial risks, and build careers. Almost every new musical wave – from punk and hip-hop to electronic music, metal, and indie pop – began with an independent label's "crazy" belief in something untested. Many passionate, artist-driven projects have historically grown into professional companies with employees. But in today's streaming economy, this has become increasingly difficult.

The Streaming Economy

Market concentration – and our concern – must be understood in the context of today's streaming economy, where the old metaphor of "many small streams" has been replaced by a dew-soaked meadow, and "the long tail" by a docked Boxer dog.

In Sweden and much of the world, streaming is effectively synonymous with Spotify, whose market dominance is unique. This intensifies the problem. UMG – a Spotify shareholder – has pushed for compensation models that favor catalogue (older releases) over new music.
The so-called artist-centric model, where recordings must reach 1,000 monthly streams before generating any income at all, marginalizes new artistic expressions and niche genres.
The gap between large and small actors widens, creating a two-tier system where market dominance – not creativity or innovation – determines visibility and success. Naturally, this harms cultural diversity.

Sweden's Status as a Music Exporter at Risk

Sweden is the EU's only net exporter of music. If we want to retain that position, increased market concentration is a step in the wrong direction. Sweden's success was built on an ecosystem where independent labels dared to invest in new talent across the genre spectrum, later collaborating with other independents and major labels.
But today's landscape is different. When the professional independent sector loses revenue and access to strong neutral infrastructure, the resources for bold investment in new music diminish.
The result: fewer and more homogenized companies and releases, fewer long-term careers, and reduced cultural diversity. And if music ends up being controlled entirely by multinational corporations – how much of the export revenue will remain in Sweden?

Data Is Power

Downtown's companies – FUGA, Curve Royalty Systems, Songtrust and CD Baby – manage vast amounts of sensitive data from thousands of independent companies: revenue flows, contract terms, strategies, release plans, and income streams.
Allowing the world's largest music corporation to control this infrastructure is akin to letting your competitor read your accounting in real time. UMG promises to safeguard the data, but in a reality where they already control nearly 40 percent of recorded music in Europe, it is hard to believe that this information asymmetry will have no consequences.
This structural flaw risks further distorting an already uneven playing field.

This is not about "major = bad, indie = good." What is at stake is the functioning of a healthy market for a vital cultural sector. Publicly traded companies are structurally obliged to maximize market share, profit, and shareholder value. This is not a moral judgment — it is simply a fact.
The problem would be smaller if there were still five major labels, because they would have to compete meaningfully. It would also be smaller if there were many strong independent labels — but there are not, and building new ones has never been harder.

Independent labels contribute long-term A&R, artistic risk-taking, and musical diversity. If the industry's infrastructure is concentrated in the hands of a few gatekeepers, we lose the oxygen that keeps the music economy alive. If this acquisition goes through, the world's largest music company will become even larger — at the expense of the independent sector.

The Path Forward

Music needs a market where professional independent labels can continue to be bold, where artists can find partners with different profiles, and where new voices can still break through the noise.
We need a market where competition takes place on fair terms and where collaboration remains voluntary — not dictated by dependence on the three major companies for distribution and critical infrastructure.

The music market must remain open, diverse, and human — not predictable and centralized.

This is why SOM, IMPALA, WIN, and independent labels worldwide say: block the deal."