AVICII – LEONA LEWIS = David VS Goliath

This is the BUZZ of the month (probably the year) in the EDM industry. You can find everywhere on blogs or twitter; fans, producers, DJs giving their opinions or support on this matter. For those of you who didn’t read our [brilliant] article from last week, or don’t know about the story, we have been investigating and we can now offer you this full recap of the story:

Penguin

Swedish producer – one of the biggest star of the electronic music industry – AVICII has been working for months on a track based from a sample of the Penguin Café Orchestra. He released a preview of his instrumental version called temporarily “Penguin” 6 months ago. The track was signed by Ministry Of Sound and they started working right away on a vocal version.

The vocal versions

AVICII and his management were pitched many vocal ideas including this one tested at the Ultra Music Festival in Miami. “Collide” was one of them, but refused as a result of AVICII and his management to proceed with “Fade Into Darkness” as they believed that it fitted them the best.

Money vs Fans

The big issue today is because Leona Lewis used AVICII’s instrumental version to create “Collide” despite the refusal from him and his management on granting the rights. Leona Lewis through her label eventually came a second time, asking for the right with [a lot of] money but AVICII and his management decided to refuse [which is rare in this industry] not to disappoint the fans who were all very excited for “Fade Into the Darkness“.

David vs Goliath

From there, it’s clear that there was no more communication between Leona Lewis and Avicii people. And despite the refusal from Avicii, “Collide” was set to be released as the first single of Leona Lewis‘s upcoming album, and a powerful marketing campaign was put together; including 2 months before the release, radio and social media promotion, synchronized by the remixers, producers, replayers, songwriters. This aggressive strategy was made to clearly Fade away AVICII’s release into the Darkeness…

As the result Radio 1 (Pete Tong essential etc.) had to decide not to support AVICII‘s Fade Into the Darkness on their program, since Leona Lewis has a track which sounds exactly the same. In addition, she has the support from SimCo, one of the heavyweight in the music industry and owned by TV celebrity Simon Cowell.

Avicii & Leona Lewis – Penguins Collide Into Darkness by Jadore House Music

Twitter Battle

Since the story broke out, a lot of words have been exchanged on Twitter by Avicii, Leona Lewis, Afrojack (One of the remixer), or Leona Lewis’s manager. here is what we can bring to answer their arguments:

Avicii agreed publishing splits for himself and his manager

Avicii and his management were aware that Leona Lewis and her management wanted to use Avicii’s instrumental as we explained it to you above. However, Avicii refused the grant to the right of the track and therefore never agreed publishing splits on the track. They also confirmed that as to this day they never had access to “Collide” except for goggling it!

AVICII supported Leona Lewis vocal version among the ones offered to him

It’s also very clear that Avicii did NOT prefer Leona Lewis vocal version as Fade Into Darkeness was the one chosen for release. Therefore they never sent the track to Leona Lewis to have her vocals written over it, since they went for a different version. In addition they refused them the grant to use the instrumental for a album first single…

What is going to Happen?

Since last week, AVICII has been receiving tons of support from producers (such as Sebastian Ingrosso) and fans. It might be too late to stop “Collide” and get it out of the market. But AVICII‘s example should be the last victim of superpower labels who believe they are above the law and can use copyrighted track and use them for commercial purposes and not be punished for it.

If Avicii wanted to make money on this, he could have taken the offer from Leona Lewis from the beginning. But now who is going to pay the damage of more than 6 months of hardwork from Avicii, his manager and his label; Ministry of Sound? What about all the frustration and discouragement in front of so much injustice?

AVICII Facebook Support

I believe rather than a money repair, the best way to react is to show SimCo that AVICII and his fans can make more noise than their dollars and join this Facebook Page created to support AVICII in his battle:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Avicii-Support-Fade-into-Darkness-VS-Collide/168283589907019
Please share it with all your friends; the more members it has, the more power AVICII will have to get Fade into the Darkness back!

This post was made to be as informative as possible, and is based on our investigation. We chased and offered both parties to speak up. If anyone else would like to bring elements to the story, they can contact us at info [a] jadorehousemusic.com.