Despite the rise of illegal downloading, Swedish artists make 35 percent more money today than in 2000.

Although illegal downloading and falling record sales have plagued the music industry during the last decade Swedish musicians make considerably more money today just nine years ago. Total artists revenues have increased by almost 35 percent to more than 1 billion kronor (€96 million, $140 million) since 2000, a science report said Monday.

The research shows that earlier statements about the devastating effects by illegal piracy, claiming that the Swedish music sector has lost 60 percent of its turnover, are simply false.

The revenue streams come from three main sources; record labels, live promoters and collecting societies (such as Swedish Artists and Musicians Interest Organization). While record sales have plunged since year 2001 the amount of money made from playing live has boomed. Still, revenues for the music industry in Sweden, as a whole, have stayed basically the same.

Daniel Johansson, head of music industry analysis firm Trend Maze and researcher at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, who has conducted the study together with MSc Markus Larsson, pointed out that the figures are mainly uplifting but also a bit depressing.

“From one perspective this is very good news. It shows that Sweden still has a very interesting music industry and that the whole music industry system have changed and started to adapt itself to the new music landscape”, he wrote on his blog as the report was released, also pointing out that “it is clearly not good news that the Swedish music industry as a whole basically has been at the same levels for nine years”.

[Source: The Swedish Music Industry in Graphs]

Daniel Johansson seems to get upset by the fact that people have used his data to feed the view of the record label as something “evil” and unnecessary.

“Most pirate supporters seems to forget that most of the music they love has come to life because of record labels. They seem to forget that during many years, record labels have been the creative center for the global music industry, finding, developing, recording and publishing the music that we all love”, he wrote.

“Record labels are not bad. They have just been a little confused”.

Since the year 2001 Swedish record labels have seen a dramatic drop in revenues. But, in 2009, the trend changed for the first time since 2001. During the first nine months total revenues increased with 18 percent compared to a year ago and digital revenues were up by a remarkable 80 percent.

The revitalization of record company sales can be explained by the combination of Sweden’s new “Ipred” copyright law, which is paving the way for legal action, and better legal alternatives such as services from mobile phone operators and popular streaming services such as Spotify.