MP3 Company Refuses to Pay Swedish Copyright Levy

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."

Comments

Go Jens!

[yotto]

I need some good earbuds, maybe I'll buy some from you.

Finally!!

[ParrotDroppings]

At last, one real-world company that fights back to the MPAA/RIAA/Copyright mongers!
I hope they will put the trial on TV like they did with mr. Jackson.
L33T ! W00T !!

Re:Finally!!

[shark72]

" At last, one real-world company that fights back to the MPAA/RIAA/Copyright mongers!"

Know thine enemy. Like similar national copyright collectives, Copyswede collects money on behalf of authors and performers. None goes to the RIAA, not even as an intermediary.

This is vitally important for everybody to understand if they subscribe to the general philosophy that artists are the good guys while record companies are the bad guys.

To take Jens' side.

[Alsn]

The ridiculous thing about this whole deal is that the law specifically states that its supposed to be compensation for "private copies" which before this law was just as legal as it was after. The only difference is that all of a sudden makes of movable media(cds, casettes, dvds, etc etc) was supposed to pay extra to the copyright owners because they felt people should have to pay to be able to use their music how they wanted.

Good

[mrsev]

May I wish them all my support. As far as I see it it is a tax that is paid to a private company. In the same way that when ever I do a data back-up I must pay "sony et al" some money for the "blank media" . This is in Portugal at least. One shop tha tI know....mediamarkt. Actually puts how much you pay on he receipt. In this way I found out I was also paying a "recycling" tax on my RECHARGABLE batteries.

"They shaft us coz we take it!"

85 million kronor

[mysqlrocks]

Last year, 85 million kronor in cassette compensation was collected and redistributed by the copyright organisation Copyswede.

FYI, 85 million kronor is appx. 11 million U.S. dollars.

Why can't we let market forces rule here?

[confusion]

Look, if these crazy governments (US included) would stop butting in, the record labels that hold on to their current business models would go out of business, but some other, more creative model would come into being. Hell, one of the big record companies themselves might even be the innovator.

Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/

Re:Why can't we let market forces rule here?

[Anita Coney]

Yeah, as some brilliant person once said, "P2P won't kill the music industry, only the current one."

Re:Why can't we let market forces rule here?

[Rude Turnip]

"This change may kill off most theaters."

Quite frankly, I am dreaming for the day that movie theaters will become a rarity that will only be enjoyed by true movie fans, instead of a dumping ground for rude children. Charge me $25 per ticket for a nice seat, serve reasonably priced food and absolutely forbid anyone under 21 from entering the building. Sounds elitist? Damn right...but let's face facts, most theaters are crap nowadays because of the annoying kids. I'm not even 30 yet and I'm complaining about it.

jens

[MrSpiff]

Jens is commonly known as being one of the few public figures in sweden standing up against the swedish equivalence of RIAA/MPAA, Antipiratbyrån ("The Antipiracy Bureau").

Interesting, but probably futile....

[Willeh]

It's a nice gesture, but i doubt it's gonna work. Over where i live (the Netherlands) the national copyright association (we actually have 2 similar ones) is under fire for shady practices with regards to taxes on blanc DVD-R's and so on. What needs to be done is protest the existance of these vague agencies whose working are mostly unnnoticeable (does the money really go to the artists?) at a national level, by openly questioning the existence of said agency.

It does seem pretty damn unfair that Apple would be exempt, since they don't manufacture their players in Sweden. I'd urge all Swedes to buy their media/ players that are burdened by taxes that would go to this agency abroad like we've been doing (i buy all my blancs in germany, where there are no unfair taxes. Hell, over here the tax is more than the media itself!) for a while now.

Bravo that company

[mrRay720]

Imagine that - not wanting to pay money to a corrupt industry that wants payment from everybody both innocent and guilty, just in case thery do something wrong.

Imagine if the laws the media industry 'buy' were appplied to other products. Knife manufacturers would face life imprisonment (or the death penalty) incase someone buying one of their knives killed someone with it, Ford and Honda executives would be locked up on the off chance that one of their cars was used as a getaway car, and makers of mobile phones would face a free holiday in Gitmo because a nutter could use one of their phones to remotely detonate a bomb.

You go music industry, I love you and your purchased laws and taxes!!

Re:Bravo that company

[Jugalator]

Imagine that - not wanting to pay money to a corrupt industry that wants payment from everybody both innocent and guilty, just in case thery do something wrong.

This is actually not a piracy levy, but a privacy levy. It's a fee taken to compensate artists from the legal rights you have to make personal copies.

Here's the deal: Copyswede's Blank Tape Levy [english]

IMHO, that only makes it even more freaky. It's a legal right we have, and they seek compensation for that right, and the gov't blindly think they can do so? I don't understand how they can have legal support to do this. Note this is not about the gov't collecting levies, it's about a commercial organization. They call themselves a "co-operative economic association".

But regardless the intent, it's ridiculous to put a levy on... blank records... in my opinion. They have no clue what I do with them, which ones I use to backup work on, to send digital photos to my family on, etc. Am I supposed to pay for my own copyright here? Get rid of your hands on my work!

Copied to a different format???

[somethingwicked]

compensate copyright owners whose music is copied to a different format for private use

Copied to a different format huh? So, I have to pay money to do this :

One-a - Nutheeng vrung veet me-a Tvu - Nutheeng vrung veet me-a Three-a - Nutheeng vrung veet me-a Fuoor - Nutheeng vrung veet me-a Oone-a - Sumetheeng's gut tu geefe-a Tvu - Sumetheeng's gut tu geefe-a Three-a - Sumetheeng's gut tu geefe-a Noo Let zee budeees heet zee fluur Let zee budeees heet zee fluur Let zee budeees heet zee fluur

Re:Copied to a different format???

[iphayd]

You forgot the bork! bork! bork! at the end.

Then it would be in proper sweedish.

Re:Complete Bullshit

[cronius]

As stupid as it is, I would actually accept it if it means distributing copyrighted material would be legal. But they're getting it both ways (it's illegal, AND we're supposed to pay for those who don't follow the law, regardless what we do ourselves) and that's just stupid.

I'm talking from a consumers point of view, I can see why a company wouldn't like it either way.

Interesting quote

[smellystudent]

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? :-)

Apple DOES pay the personal copy tax...

[l0ne]

...in Italy, at the very least. The amount of the tax (out of the total cost of the iPod) is shown in red at the bottom of each iPod price page at the Apple Italy store (http://apple.com/italystore).

God is angry

[black_meow]

I am just waiting to see God appear on my doorstep with a receipt book in his hand, taxing me for using my penis for other than what he though it should be for.

MPAA/RIAA on the offensive in Sweden

[Anonymous Coward]

A few months ago, there was a case where the MPAA/RIAA oriented anti-copyright agency, the piratbyrån used insiders to plant evidence on a company's server and then raid them BSA style. There is also a lot of pro-softwarepatent work and lobbying going on behind the scenes in the agencies.

Re:MPAA/RIAA on the offensive in Sweden

[md2perpe]

Ehm... It was not Piratbyrån, but Antipiratbyrån.

Re:MPAA/RIAA on the offensive in Sweden

[sp3tt]

Ok, what idiot modded this overrated? It is clearly informative.
Piratbyrån ("The pirate bureau") is an anti-copyright, non-profit organization. Antipiratbyrån ("The anti-pirate bureau") is the MPAA and BSA's face in Sweden. They do not represent the music industry, a common misconception.
Piratbyrån's name is a pun on Antipiratbyrån. Piratbyrån is also against software patents, and has often figured in Swedish TV.

The incident refered to by the Grandparent was in March. Antipiratbyrån made a raid on the Swedish ISP Bahnhof, which incidentally happened to be in the same building. Four servers were confiscated by the police, they were thought to contain copyrighted material. The disks were encrypted, so no luck there. Later it was revealed by a group of hackers that an employee of Antipiratbyrån had planted the material on the servers. FYI, we're talking a few hundred gigabytes. Email conversations between the employee and Antipiratbyrån were published on antipiratbyråns webpage, which was hacked.
Bahnhof later published a report (not available in English) about the incident, claiming that Bahnhof had nothing to do with it, and that Antipiratbyrån themselves were guilty.

Re:Stupid laws still apply, Jens

[sqlrob]

What they are doing, provided they are willing to suck up and deal with the damages under the law, is the essence of civil disobedience.

You cannot tax illegal activity

[erroneus]

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.

Re:You cannot tax illegal activity

[Bob3141592]

IANAL, but I thought you certainly could tax illegal activity. Isn't that what they got Al Capone for, tax evasion on the income from his illegal activities?

The actual law

[bwz]

So people can discuss with some more information, the actual law is "Lag (1960:729) om upphovsrätt till litterära och konstnärliga verk" available (in Swedish, sorry 'bout that, I'll try to translate the relevant portion as a reply to this) here. The relevant paragraph is chapter 1, 26 k .

Re:International Legal summary?

[RandoX]

Here's a site with thousands of pro bono lawyers, each one intimately aware of every subtle nuance of international copyright law. They'll be glad to help.

Re:hypothetical question

[JadeNB]

If I buy a CD, and it becomes lost or damaged before I can make a copy, does it constitute a fair use for me to copy the same disc from my friend, or download the same songs to replace the ones that I paid for? Thoughts?

Two illegal activities in one post!

1. Inciting illegal music copying via hypothetical questions.
2. Inciting thought.

Re:Complete Bullshit

[FidelCatsro]

It all sounds like a music industry protection racket to me
(MIE : Music industry executive .. PrM :Product manufacturer)

MIE : Hello Mr Jackson , Nice product you have here

Prm : Yeah it is , is it not

MIE :Shame if something would happen to it .

PrM: What like ...

MIE: Well say some of your customers used it to break the law
*MIE pushes one on to the floor*

MIE:Whoops Accidents will happen Mr Jackson . So we are proposing a little levy to cover you incase anything bad happens

PrM : GET OUT!

MIE :I will , but think about what i said .. you wouldn't want anything to happen to that nice shiny sports car out there .Say if the Boys (Accidentally) had to take it in lieu of a fine for facilitating copyright infringement.

PrM : OK you'll get your money

Re:Complete Bullshit

[Kadin2048]

No, you've got it turned around. You pay taxes so that there will be a police department there if your house gets broken into, a fire department if it catches on fire, an ambulance service if you fall down the stairs, etc. That is to say, you pay taxes because these are all things which you might one day have a need for, and when you need them, you really NEED them. Also they're arguably (and yes I am aware that this point could go either way) not things the free market would adequately provide.

You are paying for the service before you use it -- just like you'd pay for a tech support contract, or insurance, basically.

These copyright "taxes" are completely different in that they place the consumer in the role of the criminal, paying damages for a crime they haven't committed yet, under the assumption that they are either complicit or somehow involved in it. There's not any good natural or common law analogy that I can come up with for it, which makes me suspect that it's probably unreasonable.