Jens of Sweden refuses to pay copying charge
posted Sep 15th 2005 2:45PM
Jens (of Sweden) Nylander, maker of some stylin' MP3 players, has never been shy to lay down a verbal smack on his competitors or the government. For the past two years he has publicly refused to pay the Swedish "copying charge" — something that makes CopySwede, the collectors of about $11 million dollars of said charges last year, none too happy. See, back in 1999 the Swedish government believed that copyright owners should be compensated when their music or films are copied to blank media for personal use — this includes MP3 players. We've all heard that song and dance, and naturally Jens feels the charge is unfair stating, "It's not our problem that the record industry hasn't come up with its own solution," and feels the compensation "to transfer the song to an MP3 player should be included in the purchase of the music." But what really gets Jens is his claim that Apple, with their world dominating iPods, also doesn't pay the charge — yet CopySwede isn't slapping a lawsuit on them. Egad Jens, we've got your back on this one!
go jens go!
In Italy, Apple DOES pay the personal use tax on iPods -- there's a red banner on Apple Store Italia telling you the exact amount of the tax, out of the total cost of the player. See http://apple.com/italystore.
Can one even buy Jens players in the US without going through some import site?
before the recording levy was struck down in Canada, Apple paid it and stuck a note on the website saying that the user was paying extra as well.
odd that they're not doing it in Sweden, though.
In holland there was a similar proposal to do this, only by amount of data which could be stored.. that would make a 20 GB Ipod about triple its cost... way to dutchies. another way to kill the economy. just charge taxes on everything untill nobody can or wants to afford it anymore.
Any comments from Tom's of Maine or Tom of Finland on this Jens of Sweden issue?
l0ne.
the correct url is
http://apple.com/italystore no period (.)
and for example here is the red text he was referring to.
iPod nano 2 GB : Il prezzo comprende il compenso per copia privata, pari a 5,80 euro IVA inclusa.
iPod nano 4 GB : Il prezzo comprende il compenso per copia privata, pari a 7,45 euro IVA inclusa.
that guy is so damn nasty looking. he looks like a pervert
bobo: Your an idiot, go away.
It's people like you who shouldn't spawn stupid kids.
“It’s not our problem that the record industry hasn’t come up with its own solution,” -
Or maybe it is our problem and the industry should pay us for the time we spend transfering content to the correct media.
Right no Douglas Bailey
Where is my friggen MP3 CD? !!! or Flash Media?
Isn't iTunes and the likes a solution from the industry?
I think that mp3players should be made in a way that musicfiles only can p?opied to it and not from it. That would solve many of these problems.