The Swedish Songwriting Giant: A Conversation with Lina Heyman
Sweden has been exporting music around the globe for decades. Lina Heyman thinks she knows why.
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Today’s newsletter is the latest edition in our interview series. Today, I am talking to Lina Heyman, acting CEO of STIM, the largest collection society in Sweden. I wanted to talk with Heyman because (a) I don’t think most people realize how important collection societies are for getting songwriters paid and (b) from ABBA to Max Martin, Sweden has been exporting music around the globe for decades. Check out our conversation below.
Because not everybody reading this newsletter will be familiar, can you tell me what a collecting society is and what that means for STIM?
A collecting society makes sure that songwriters are paid whenever their music is creating value. That could be for if their music is streaming or performed in concert or a bunch of other things. We make sure the people who wrote that song get a share of the value.
STIM has been around for 100 years in Sweden. It is our home market, but we also make sure to collect revenues when music travels around the world to make sure our Swedish partners are getting paid.
So, you are focused on compositions rather than recordings?
Exactly. We focus on songs and the people that create them, like composers, lyricists, and authors.
While you process collections for songwriters, do you also do so for performance rights organizations or publishers?
Yes. We have publishers in our society as well as songwriters. That’s part of our infrastructure.
How large is the STIM catalog?
We currently represent over 110,000 songwriters.
Safe to say that results in you representing millions of compositions?
Yes! Over 2 million.
You mentioned how you process both collections inside and outside of Sweden for Swedish artists. From ABBA and Roxette to Max Martin and Tove Lo, Sweden has a long history of exporting music around the globe. Why do you think Sweden has such a rich musical culture as compared to other similar countries?
I get that question a lot. I like to debunk the idea that there is something magical or accidental here. Of course, there’s a certain magic around creation, but I think our musical culture is the sum of long term investments in musical education, free access to instruments for children, mentorship networks, and a culture of early adoption. I think that last part is actually quite important. In the 1990s, the state financed access to broadband. That led to online music services and tools being adopted in Sweden much earlier than other places. It also made it easy to distribute and contribute to music globally.
Did you take advantage of these musical resources while you were growing up?
Yes, I did. I think almost everyone attending school did.
What instrument did you play?
I played the piano badly.
As you mentioned, access to broadband made it easier for people to distribute music for little to no cost online. As the internet has become more ubiquitous, this has led to a huge number of artists uploading music every day. Is STIM willing to represent anybody uploading music online? Or do you focus on the professional class of artists?
As I mentioned, we have over 110,000 affiliates today, up more than 100% since 2008. STIM wants to follow the democratization trend. If you have music published, you can register with us. We do not want to be exclusive. We focus on finding efficiencies to make sure artists get what they are owed faster. This is especially important when monies are flowing in from thousands of places around the globe.
What do you think are the biggest barriers for you collecting more royalties around the globe for your artists? Are they technological? Political? Something else?
It’s a mix. We are constantly trying to tear down barriers.
You recently worked on a paper with Will Page, Spotify’s former chief economist. According to that report, 40% of your revenue is coming from overseas. That means you are probably one of the biggest — if not the biggest — music exporter on Earth. How does STIM continue to support this as a society?
We continue to focus on international relations and partnerships. As music has gone digital, there is just so much potential. At the same time, many revenues are still collected in the old ways of managing relationships and making sure everything flows back to Sweden. It’s a dual way of working.
What does the “old way” of collecting entail?
The old way requires that we contract with a local collecting society in each country. We establish a reciprocal agreement with them, so whenever one of our compositions was used, they would make sure we, and ultimately our authors, get paid.
One interesting thing about your musical exports is that you export to such a diverse array of places. Swedish songwriters have a stronghold in South Korea. Swedish songwriters have made inroads in Latin America. What enables the society of songwriters to find success in so many places with distinct music cultures?
Everyone wants an answer to that question. I think the most important thing is having strong partnerships and continually expanding your network. Whenever I speak with songwriters exporting their songs, they always mention how Swedes have a good reputation. They show up to the studio on time. They don’t leave until the song is done. It sounds simple, but many people don’t operate in that way. But that’s taught through our music education system.
I’ve written in the past about how while we see more gender parity on the artist front that men continue to dominate songwriting spaces. In your report, you show that there is actually gender equity in many of these Swedish songwriting exports. How did you achieve this?
Sweden has always had a big focus on gender equality. As a society, we just stumbled on this while going through the data. But it’s probably due to initiatives in our education system. I’m happy that we are seeing this 50:50 gender-split, though.
Where do you expect STIM members, men and women, to find success in the future?
As you can see in the report, we are very excited about South America. The Asian market also remains interesting. But we are focused on export diversity. We want to make sure we are in a country as soon as our members find any success there. Ultimately, our goal is to get people paid.
When you say that South America is exciting, is your goal to go in and make sure that you are efficiently collecting monies for your members? Or are you trying to go in and find songwriting opportunities for your members? In other words, are you managing relationships or just focused on royalty collection?
Our core goal is royalty collection. But we do have affiliated publishers who are looking to get their writers to place songs. They have the expertise in that area. They are the ones connecting writers and artists, along with setting up songwriting camps.
It’s also interesting that your society has been so open with sharing this information. Obviously, you’ve had a couple of good years, so it’s nice to be able to share that information, but why do you think many other societies aren’t as open with how things work?
From our perspective, we’re a neutral party in the music business. We are founded by songwriters, and our job is to collect royalties for our rightsholders. On top of that, we want our members to be able to earn a living wage. We wanted to open a dialogue with global players to see how we can make that possible. Transparency is key. You can’t improve things if everyone is keeping secrets.
How did you end up working at STIM?
I’m a big music fan. I’m also trained as a copyright lawyer. I started out working with artists in the classical and opera fields. Then I ended up working on licensing deals for STIM, which led to my current role.
What were the big differences between working in the classical and opera music space to the popular music space?
The core is the same, especially since I don’t think genres are as separated as they once were. Ultimately, you need to have a love for the arts to work in either space. I think that’s the real thread throughout my career.
I guess the one big difference is the terms under which you work. In classical, there is typically one main revenue source from which you derive royalties. For pop writers, you are working with tons of small royalty sources.
Over the last couple of years, generative AI has had a bigger impact on music. What is STIM’s relationship with AI?
In the same way that Sweden was an early adopter with broadband, which was beneficial to our music community, we want to see how our writers can profit from this new technology.
To finish up, what are you looking forward to from STIM in the next year?
My biggest takeaway from our recent report is the importance of export diversity. When we talk about Sweden, we talk about our successful pop songwriters, like Max Martin and Shellback. They are great songwriters, but when we look at the data, we see incredible diversity in our exports. We want to keep our focus on supporting that. We also want to keep publishing this data to be as open as possible with our partners and rightsholders.
Want more from Lina Heyman? Check out STIM, the collection society that she works for.
Want more from Chris Dalla Riva? Pre-order his debut book, Uncharted Territory: What Numbers Tell Us about the Biggest Hit Songs and Ourselves.