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.
I'd appreciate any further information you could have.
Thanks a lot,