Don’t tell people what you do,” Per Sundin’s wife insisted as they went to a dinner party several years ago. Sundin wasn’t a banker, used-car salesman or weapons producer, but the head of a record label in Sweden. Back then, being a music industry boss in the Nordic country was a miserable job. Sales had more than halved between 2000 and 2008 as illegal downloading took over. Sundin, who has headed a record label since 1998, was known by international colleagues as the expert on The Pirate Bay, an infamous Swedish website used to illegally download the latest music and films.
几年前，佩尔•松丁(Per Sundin)与妻子参加晚宴时，妻子叮嘱他：“别跟别人说你是做什么工作的。”松丁既非银行家、二手车销售员，也非军火商，而是瑞典一家唱片公司的主管。那时在这个北欧国家，音乐产业高管的日子可不好过。由于非法下载猖獗，销售额在2000至2008年间锐减过半。从1998年起便开始担任唱片公司主管的松丁，是各国同事们眼中的“海盗湾”(The Pirate Bay)问题专家。海盗湾是一家臭名昭著的瑞典网站，人们通过它非法下载最新的音乐和电影。