Reply: Why Copyswede completely misses the mark

Copyswede behaves like a government agency - without being one, writes Klas Elm, CEO of the Swedish Electronics Industry Association, and Pär Nygårds, IT&Telecom

Copyswede sounds and acts like a government agency, but it is not. Now they are also missing the target completely. Whether the industry makes money or not is actually completely irrelevant. This is not redistribution policy we are talking about. The target of this hidden tax is the consumer - not the companies.

The whole idea behind the cassette tape tax is that the copyright owner suffers a loss because the legislator has said that it is okay to make a private copy, despite the copyright. It is the private individual who causes the damage. That is, the consumer. This has been established by the courts.

If you copied Pink Floyd's The Wall on two cassette tapes instead of buying a copy yourself, Pink Floyd suffered a loss, the idea was. So far it is possible to follow the logic, but then it becomes more difficult. What would have been reasonable would have been to tax this move and give the tax to Pink Floyd. Or that the friend directly at the time of purchase had to pay more to Pink Floyd because he bought a copyable LP.

Instead, a structure was created whereby an organization that does not own the rights (Copyswede) and industry associations, which do not represent any consumers, will negotiate the amount of a hidden fee. This fee will be applied to various products that could be used to potentially copy Pink Floyd's work. Consumers who buy these products, regardless of what they use them for, will thus unknowingly pay a fee to Pink Floyd. This is actually quite absurd.

One could also question how many times a consumer should pay for their cultural consumption? When buying the service - for example Spotify - but also when buying the product, because there is an offline mode? Is that how it was intended? Or that you pay a TV fee for the screen, a fee to the network owner, a cassette tape tax for the box, because there is the possibility of time-shifting - did the author now suffer three times as much?

Given how much has happened in media consumption, there are strong reasons to discuss the basic principles. Let us in Sweden find a new and better system to support creators. A system that has legitimacy with consumers and that people understand. A system for the 21st century and not rooted in the cassette tapes of history.

Klas Elm, CEO of the Electronics Industry
Pär Nygårds, Industry Policy Expert IT&Telecomföretagen

Replica published on PC för alla and on IDG.se on October 17, 2013