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as to exclude them from the circuit of software audio-visual media, since they operate
through mobile vision and sound while their interactive character places them close
to the hardware thematics discussed in the next chapter.
Audio-visual media are not restricted to sites of ordinary shopping. Web-based
transmission of music and film by file sharing has been described as the worst ‘threat’
ever to the music and film industry, and is targeted by fierce anti-piracy activity. The
intensity of this struggle results from piracy’s tendency to transgress the borders regu-
lating consumption, leaving out its most significant moment where a commodity is
bought and sold. File-sharing movements potentially step out of commodity
exchange and replace it with either a gift economy or a public resource. Active meas-
ures against illegal copying and distribution were taken in Sweden in 2001 when the
so-called Anti-Pirate Agency (Antipiratbyrån) was formed by the film business with
the aim of tracking down and prosecuting so-called pirate copiers. Hacker groups
responded with an ideologically based critique of the business, claiming that all infor-
mation as well as any other web-distributed material should be free. The heated
debate raging around these issues indicates that cyberspace media consumption has
not yet found its proper form. This is one of those ‘not yet’ cases that characterize the
contemporary stage of remediation.
The outcome of this struggle is still unresolved, but it has already affected the
established trade with audio-visual software. The record and film industries have for
several years reported decreasing sales figures, and retail shopkeepers testify to a
decrease of customers. If no retail innovations arise, we might witness the end of
retail trade and traditional face-to-face consumption between seller and buyer within
this media circuit. The only safe conclusion at the present is that digital copying and
web distribution of these media have become a giant commercial and legislative
problem. Illegal copying plays an increasingly significant role within a wider software
audio-visual circuit of media consumption, of which money-based commodity
exchange is only a part. It indicates an uneven pace of development of technology,
commerce and legislation, where technology lies ahead of consumption and legisla-
tion that have not yet found proper forms for integrating copying into the legal
sphere of consumption.

SOUNDTRACKS OF SHOPPING
There are a lot of entrances to software audio-visual media in a shopping centre like
Solna. One passes through one of them as soon as one steps into the centre and is
exposed to the music that flows from shops, restaurants and coffee shops. Music can
draw attention to itself by its high volume and recognizability, or disguise itself by
low volume and anonymity. The latter is a characteristic feature of the prefabricated
background music commonly called muzak that is often used in commercial spaces.
This kind of music is also present in Solna and flows from time to time from a central
source through the whole shopping centre, but mostly with a softness and anonymity
that makes it almost unheard. The volume increases at Christmas, Easter and other
holidays when consumption booms. It then shifts from background to foreground