STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Ifpi (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) issued today an open letter that has been published in several Swedish newspapers. The purpose of the open letter is to address the copyright issues and downloading. 112 Swedish artists have signed the letter, among them Per Gessle, Göran Fritzon, Clarence Öfwerman and Lasse Lindbom.

  "For us artists it's totally unacceptable to have a debate where the general meaning is that it is OK for people to steal records and films, or for that matter the newspaper Expressen, in a store. But somehow some leading voices think it's OK to steal via the Internet," reads an excerpt from the letter.

  Other artists like Håkan Hellström and Nanne Grönwall feel that an open letter from Ifpi is the wrong way to do it. They are both happy that people want to download their music and say that the music industry should try other ways. Nanne says to Expressen "This is just about the same thing like when the cassette tape arrived. The record companies blasted out that this was the death of the record industry. And it surely wasn't." Anders Nunstedt, pop columnist of Expressen, says that the record companies should see Internet downloading as the solution, not the problem.

• Ifpi letter PDF (In Swedish)
• Nunstedt's column (In Swedish)