Rasmus Fleischer (born 19 April 1978 in

Halmstad Halmstad () is a port, university, industrial and recreational city A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Socia ...

) is a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

ist and

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

. He earned his Ph.D. in history in 2012 with a dissertation that was also published as a book of 640 pages: "The political economy of music: Legislation, sound media and the defence of live music, 1925–2000". He is a researcher at the department of

economic history Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and ins ...

Stockholm University Stockholm University ( sv, Stockholms universitet) is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden, founded as a college in 1878, with university status since 1960. With over 33,000 students at four different faculties: law, humanities, so ...

, while continuing to also publishing non-academic articles and books. Since 2004 he has been running the blog ''Copyriot''. He is a frequent speaker at

transmediale Transmediale, stylised as transmediale is an annual festival for art and digital culture in Berlin, usually held over five days at the end of January and the beginning of February. Transmediale takes the form of a conference (sometimes called ...

, addressing topics ranging from "the

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, namely by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines ...

rave A rave (from the verb: '' to rave'') is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance mus ...

" and "how money is failing" to questions about contemporary fascism and the problems of speaking about "

internet freedom Internet freedom is an umbrella term that encompasses digital rights, freedom of information, the right to Internet access, freedom from Internet censorship, and net neutrality. Some believe that Internet freedom is not a human right. They think t ...

". He was part of a transdisciplinary team of researchers investigating the music streaming company

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...

and co-authored the book "Spotify Teardown" (MIT Press, 2019). as well as another book on Spotify, published in Swedish and Danish. He works in a research project on the history of economic statistics, funded by the

Swedish Research Council The Swedish Research Council ( sv, Vetenskapsrådet) is a Government agency in Sweden established in 2001, with the responsibility to support and develop basic scientific research. Its objective is for Sweden to be a leading nation in scienti ...

, "Valuations of quality in the

Consumer Price Index A consumer price index (CPI) is a price index, the price of a weighted average market basket of consumer goods and services purchased by households. Changes in measured CPI track changes in prices over time. Overview A CPI is a statistica ...

and its significance for social and economic history".

Anti-copyright activism

In 2003, he was one of the founders of

Piratbyrån Piratbyrån ( "The Pirate Bureau") was a Swedish think tank established to support the free sharing of information, culture, and intellectual property. Piratbyrån provided a counterpoint to lobby groups such as the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau. ...

, the anti-copyright organization that, in turn, once founded BitTorrent tracker

The Pirate Bay The Pirate Bay (sometimes abbreviated as TPB) is an online index of digital content of entertainment media and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay allows visitors to search, download, and contribute mag ...

. Since then he has been lecturing extensively, on subjects related to "the collapse of copyright" and the future of music, at various European conferences addressing

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and/or

new media New media describes communication technologies that enable or enhance interaction between users as well as interaction between users and content. In the middle of the 1990s, the phrase "new media" became widely used as part of a sales pitch for ...

. Parts of an interview with Fleischer commenting on

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, education ...

are featured in ''

Steal This Film ''Steal This Film'' is a film series documenting the movement against intellectual property directed by Jamie King, produced by The League of Noble Peers and released via the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol. Two parts, and one special The ...

'' (2006). While most of his writings on this topic has been in Swedish, in June 2008 the

Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Indust ...

commissioned an essay titled ''The future of copyright''. When the Swedish engineering weekly ''

Ny Teknik ''Ny Teknik'' (meaning ''New Technology'' in English) is a weekly Swedish magazine with news, debates and ads in the field of technology and engineering. It is published in Stockholm, Sweden. History and profile ''Ny Teknik'' was launched on 18 O ...

'' in September 2006 ranked the fifty most influential persons in Swedish IT-industry, he ended up as seventh on the list. During January and February 2008, he stayed as an

artist in residence Artist-in-residence, or artist residencies, encompass a wide spectrum of artistic programs which involve a collaboration between artists and hosting organisations, institutions, or communities. They are programs which provide artists with space a ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

, invited by Transforming Freedom, an audio archiving platform based in the Viennese Museumsquartier to live there while doing mainly theoretical and conceptual work.

Musical activities

Rasmus Fleischer has also studied at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a music school, conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the Undergraduate education, undergraduate to the Doctorate, doctoral level in a ...

and, amongst other musical activities, interpreted

medieval music Medieval music encompasses the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and followed by the Renaissance ...

in the ensemble Vox Vulgaris which released an album in 2003 and was, after being inactive for many years, resuming activities in 2019. His main instruments are

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

and

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

. In recent years, he has been playing together with members of bands like

Dungen Dungen ("the grove", ) is a Swedish rock band based in Stockholm. Often classified as psychedelic rock, Dungen is also influenced by Swedish (and other) folk music, classic rock, progressive rock, garage rock and alternative rock. The band ...

and appears on a LP by Our Solar System in 2013.

Political background

Fleischer's political background is leftist, without any known party affiliation. In the early 2000s, he worked for some years as a journalist for ''

Arbetaren ''Arbetaren'' (''The Worker'') is a Swedish syndicalist newspaper. Founded in 1922, it has been published by the anarcho-syndicalist union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematic ...

'', the weekly newspaper of the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden, a syndicalist union. Around the same time, he criticized parts of the Swedish political left for tendencies of nationalism and during the

2006 Lebanon War The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War ( ar, حرب تموز, ''Ḥarb Tammūz'') and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War ( he, מלחמת לבנון השנייה, ''Milhemet Leva ...

, he criticized Swedish anti-war demonstrators for siding up with Hezbollah supporters. Since 2010, Fleischer's writings has appeared several times in the anarchist magazine

Brand A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's good or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create an ...

and has written essays presenting the thought of the Marxian thinker Robert Kurz.Värdekritisk kristeori – att tänka kapitalets sammanbrott
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Writing

His essay ''Det postdigitala manifestet'' (2009, in Swedish) analyzes how the contemporary culture of digital abundance produces a reevaluation of physical presence, taking examples mainly from the area of music. It has been published also in Finnish and in 2013 selected parts of it was published in an English translation by ''E-flux magazine'' in 2013. His second book, the double volume Boken & Biblioteket, was published in October 2011, also in Swedish. The first book is about books, including discussions about the political economy of publishing, the history of

print on demand Print on demand (POD) is a printing technology and business process in which book copies (or other documents, packaging or materials) are not printed until the company receives an order, allowing prints of single or small quantities. While oth ...

, the durability of e-books, the aesthetics of audiobooks and robot publishing. The second book discusses the library both in terms of a selective institution, a digital interface and a post-digital space. Besides from his books, writings by Fleischer appears in a number of anthologies as well as in magazines and newspapers, though not much of it has been translated to languages other than Swedish.

Bibliography

*
Det postdigitala manifestet
' (2009), 82 pages, *

' (2011). *

' (2012). *
Tapirskrift
' (2013). *
Den svenska enhörningen: storyn om Spotify
', with Pelle Snickars (2018). *
Spotify Teardown: Inside the Black Box of Streaming Music
', with Maria Eriksson, Anna Johansson, Pelle Snickars and Patrick Vonderau (MIT Press, 2019).

Notes

External links

Rasmus Fleischer's personal homepageCopyriot
blog {{DEFAULTSORT:Fleischer, Rasmus 1978 births Living people Swedish bloggers People from Halmstad Intellectual property activism Royal College of Music, Stockholm alumni Syndicalists Economic historians Musicians from Halmstad