It’s the new millennium and music is facing an existential threat: illegal piracy. In Walkley Award-winning journalist Marc Fennell (, , ) uncovers the bizarre story of the Aussie start up, Guvera, that promised to revolutionise music forever, but instead vanished in a $180 million mystery.
The two-part blackly comic docuseries premieres at 8.35pm Tuesday, 15 October on SBS and SBS On Demand.
In 'Red Flag: Music's Failed Revolution' Marc Fennell digs deep into the history of Guvera, uncovering a web of shady business dealings.
In the 2 x 1 hour docuseries, Marc is joined by iconic Australian musician Ben Lee as they take a nostalgic trip to the '90s, the golden age, before piracy threatened to take down the multi-billion-dollar music industry and an unlikely saviour. Guvera, emerged from the Gold Coast.
With an audacious plan to revolutionise the music industry by promising free, legal mp3 downloads (and later streaming), Guvera’s colourful founders offered a beacon of hope in an era dominated by illegal file sharing platforms like Napster and Pirate Bay. In a few short years, Guvera would take the world by storm – becoming the main player in the music downloading and streaming market and beating Spotify to launch in key markets.
With its superstar following, glitzy parties and lucrative brand sponsorships, including Harley Davidson and The Australian Open, it raised an eye watering $180 million, but what was really going on behind closed doors?
A recreation scene of the inside of Guvera's office, in 'Red Flag: Music's Failed Revolution'.
Presenter and Producer Marc Fennell said, “We’ve seen the explosion of social media, streaming and AI fundamentally shift how we interact, but the story of Guvera has largely been forgotten. The ambitions this company had were gargantuan, and their successes and failures have been too easily overlooked. There was a period where Australia could have been home to the next Spotify (before Spotify became a thing).
"It’s a roller-coaster of a story with euphoric highs and devastating lows. But most importantly, Guvera’s catastrophic implosion also reveals a brutal reality about Australia – our attitudes towards money, innovation, and risk.”
Red Flag: Music’s Failed Revolution will be subtitled in five languages, streaming on SBS On Demand in Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean.
premieres on Tuesday 15 October at 8:35pm on SBS with both episodes available to stream free on SBS On Demand. The second and final episode will air on Tuesday 22 October at 8:35pm on SBS.
