CD-R royalties

[raphael calvelli]

At 0:34 +0100 16-01-2002, Eneko Lacunza wrote:
>Dear free software lovers,
>
>	Today in Spain we have been suprised by some bad news in the media. It
>has been revealed that Traxdata Spain has been forced to pay royalties
>for each data CD-R manufactured since 1997 to Author's Society known as
>SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores de España). The royalty free is about
>0,18 euros per burnable hour, so each CD-R will cost between 0,22 and
>0,24 euros more (in fact it will be between 1/2 and 1/4 of the media
>price).
>
>	Computer users are very angry about this, and so is the free software
>community. We see that SGAE is making money without any right to it when
>we burn CDs with free software, backups, etc. For example, my Citius
>Debian copy, which consists of 10 CDs, will cost to copy 2,2 euros more,
>which is quite a difference if we think that it has no other expense.
>
>	We also think that this court decission harms rights granted by Spanish
>Constitution, and are planning action against those royalties.
>
>	I'd like to know how are things along Europe, so that we have some more
>background on the subject.
>
>	I've been told that in France a similar royalty was set to CD-Rs.

In Italy, each CD must be , since a few monthes, certified with a stamp from the Author's Rights ministerial Office (SIAE, società italiana degli autori). I hope that somebody from Italy that followed this question will add more informations.


Raphael