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Jens of Sweden refuses to pay copying charge

Jens Nylander (owner Jens of Sweden)

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!