Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

MP3 Company Refuses to Pay Swedish Copyright Levy

Posted by Hemos on from the fight-the-power dept.

praps writes "Swedish MP3 player manufacturer Jens is to be hauled before the courts for flatly refusing to pay a charge designed to compensate copyright owners whose music is copied to a different format for private use, reports news site The Local. Jens says the surcharge, administered by Copyswede, is unreasonable and that "it's not our problem that the record industry hasn't come up with its own solution". Apparently Apple doesn't pay it on their iPods either."

2 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. Interesting quote by smellystudent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    A statement from CopySwede: "As the law stands, people have the right to make copies for private use, so the copyright owners should be fairly compensated."

    Isn't that what they pay for when they buy the music?

    Or is he saying that Swedes only pay for the right to have a single copy of the music on the medium supplied, and must not transfer it to any other medium?
    Does copying it in electronic form to stranded copper count? :-)

    --
    Predictive text is shiv!
  2. You cannot tax illegal activity by erroneus · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You just can't say it more clearly than that.

    If the activity is legal, there can be taxes imposed. One might argue "this isn't a tax." Okay, so technically, it's not, but it is in many respects. Further, somewhere along the line is an assumption of unlawful infringement by the users sponsored by the makers of media players. This 'legal' assumtion circumvents the free-world's notion of due process under law.

    I have been an opponent of preemptive copyright infringement compensation since I first heard of it. It flies in the face of presumed innocence and due process that we, the people of the free democratic societies have always expected. The only "approriate" way for this to be legally established is for the **AA's to lawfully SUE all consumers in every country in a tremendous class-action suit against infringement activities. I'd love to see them try that too. They'd loose and people would more directly hate them for it.

    The biggest problem with all of this is that the public at large is still unaware of how this affects them. So as long as the costs to consumers are hidden (by charging the media and hardware makers) consumers will pay the price on the label and move along as if nothing wrong has occured.