Is 99 cents per song a fair price for music?
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
I think so (79p UK anyway, and now without DRM on iTunes). I however won't pay for downloads, I want the physical media. However, something has to be said for the ability to torrent. I torrented an album yesterday, and I believe I had the right to do so, here's why: I bought a used album from FYE while on holiday last week, I got home last night and when I went to rip it it wouldn't play, on further inspection, it would appear there's a tiny, but major scratch. So now I can't listen to it, but I've paid for the right to legally do so, and I'm hardly going to fly back to exchange it. So I went to a torrent site, searched, downloaded, imported to iTunes, and copied to my iPhone. I felt no guilt in doing this.
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
I tend to look at things based on revenue vs. cost and supply/demand. So my question would be - does it cost the same to produce a digital album download as it does a CD? I know there are website dev costs, bandwidth costs, etc, but I still can't see that costing anywhere near the same amount as the materials, product, and delivery costs of traditional media (records, 8-tracks, tapes, or CDs). CDs and DVDs cost more than their tape/VHS counterparts - in fact significantly more when they first came out. I remember a tape being about $10-12 and CDs being $20+ (Canadian pricing). The claim at the time was the higher cost of producing on this media, but the fact is they charged more because they could - people wanted the newer, better sounding option. So we adapted to the idea that a CD album costs $20 and those prices came down slightly (depending on the CD of course) over time. But even though it costs them less to create a CD then to create a tape, they were still charging more than they used to. So now we're left with the idea that $0.99/song is supposed to be fair? I don't think so. I think people are willing to pay for it because it's the medium they want it in and it's convenient. Is the consumer saving money? Maybe just a little, but not as much as the record companies! In my opinion $0.25-0.35 is a much more reasonable price for a song (with fluctuations up or down based on the popularity of a song, which some music distributors are FINALLY starting to implement now). Given their cost savings I don't see why this is not achievable, but I'll admit I have not researched ALL of the numbers. The problem is that the music industry arrived VERY LATE to the party - so now they are left paying other parties (such as itunes) to be distributors when, if Sony had done it right, they would be running the sevice themselves. Unfortunately, the reality is if they only charged $0.01/song people will still pirate and other posters are right - the pirates will still use the $0.01 "overpriced" cost as their justification. I do believe confidently, however, that if the industry had adopted this new technology quicker and with a more reasonable price they'd have a lot fewer issues and a lot less pirating.
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Christopher Duncan wrote:
why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Because pricing is a canard offered up by crooks who want to justify their dishonest behavior. From a purely historical perspective, 99 cents is a very good price for a song; it's not even close to keeping up with inflation. Years ago, 99 cents could buy you a 45 RPM single record with two songs, one of them almost always being a stinker.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke
Some of the 'B' sides were better than the 'A' sides. Not only that but with a single you had a piece of plastic in your hands that you could play over and over again and on any record machine. So 99 cents for something tangible is much better value than 99 cents for a download!
Remember, nobody ever lends money to a man with a sense of humour!
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
:) Theft will always exist, it is human nature. For those that are honest-at-heart all you have to do is remove the cognitive dissonance and they will no longer steal. (Anyone recall $30 rap CD's published by no name labels for the next fitty cent?) If you are that concerned; find a price and a means of delivery that appeals to enough honest people based on the current world view and apply it and you will make the maximum profit. As a side note: I doubt anyone is not guilty of piracy these days. If you really read some of the draconian user agreements you become a pirate the second you opened the label to read the agreement.
Need custom software developed? I do C# development and consulting all over the United States. A man said to the universe: "Sir I exist!" "However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation." --Stephen Crane
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
You've mixed questions. Is 99 cents too much?, is the choice you make every time you buy a song, depends on the song, depends on you. The piracy question is; which is a better price for a song, 99 cents or apparently free?. If it were actually free, I'd pick free over 99 cents. People who understand the choice they are making understand that piracy is not a sustainable model, there is a cost and their choice to pirate depends on someone else doing the right thing and paying those costs. To be truthful though, the costs are not what the record companies would have you believe. They are used to having an entry barrier to the market. In the past the general public couldn't press vinyl, or make high quality copies of tapes. The entry barrier gave them a lot of power, they could charge what the market would bear with restricted competition, they decided who was an artist and who wasn't. The entry barrier allowed them to charge in excess of the value they offered and allowed for a top heavy organization. The record companies haven't reacted well to the loss of their entry barrier, they'd much rather that things stayed the way they were. Instead of looking at what value they do offer and marketing that, they've decided to treat the public as an enemy. Truthfully, the record companies did add value, they developed and marketed artists, made them more broadly accessible. They could develop a profitable model based upon the value they do offer, instead they have saddled us with DRM and legal fees and bullshit. Sony went so far as to install rootkits on peoples computers. People who want to take the free choice look at the record companies pathetic behavior and use that as their excuse to steal from everybody. That is the way some people are, when they want to avoid taking responsibility for their behavior, they find someone else to blame for their behavior. Unfortunately the record companies have make it to easy for a lot of people.
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
I see the question as one of relative pricing of mp3s to CDs. If a 12 song CD sells for $15.99 in the store ($1.25 a song), is 99 cents a song really fair relatively? Consider that the CD is a physical object that has to be produced in a factory, boxed up, shipped hundreds or thousands of miles, sorted and stocked in a store by hand, and then sold at a cash register by a person and placed in a plastic bag. In the case of downloads everything is automated. True, the software has to be written and maintained. But, even given that programmers are a lot more expensive than cashiers and shelf-stockers the labor costs are still minimal. And, there is no transportation, no real estate being used in ten of thousands of locations, etc. My view is that a download should cost no more than half of what the same song would cost on a CD. So, I would say a maximum of 66 cents a song and preferably around 50 cents a song. DXer Guy
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I think that 99cents/$10 album would be a reasonable price if, and only if, you could have it in any format and could move it between any of your own devices. This would of course increase the possibility of piracy, but since the current systems are well and truly broken, what the hell. My 99 cents. :)
Henry Minute Do not read medical books! You could die of a misprint. - Mark Twain Girl: (staring) "Why do you need an icy cucumber?" “I want to report a fraud. The government is lying to us all.”
I completely agree. I used to actually buy CD's all the time. I pretty much completely turned to piracy because I am always worried that the music I buy legally will not work when I do my "almost weekly" reshuffling of files, devices, etc. Just the other day I had a friend (he's not technically savvy) call me asking me how to load his iTunes-bought music into his wife's new workout mp3 player. There really is no "easy" answer. We used to not have this problem with CDs. Even though my music collection started out as almost 100% legit, I doubt there's 10% of my music that I actually paid for. I would love to pay for music, if I can actually have it afterward. I'm not paying 99 cents for something that I will not actually own. I am a software engineer, so I do believe that people should pay for IP, but the problem with the music industry is that their only means of "customer support" is to sue their customers. Not the best way to stay in business, if you ask me.
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Depends on where you live. For 1 USD (roughly Rs. 50) I can have a full lunch at a decent restaurant and still have money left over for tips.
Cheers, Vikram.
Current activities: Films: Philadelphia TV series: Friends, season 4 Books: Six Thinking Hats, by Edward de Bono.
Carpe Diem.
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I completely agree. I used to actually buy CD's all the time. I pretty much completely turned to piracy because I am always worried that the music I buy legally will not work when I do my "almost weekly" reshuffling of files, devices, etc. Just the other day I had a friend (he's not technically savvy) call me asking me how to load his iTunes-bought music into his wife's new workout mp3 player. There really is no "easy" answer. We used to not have this problem with CDs. Even though my music collection started out as almost 100% legit, I doubt there's 10% of my music that I actually paid for. I would love to pay for music, if I can actually have it afterward. I'm not paying 99 cents for something that I will not actually own. I am a software engineer, so I do believe that people should pay for IP, but the problem with the music industry is that their only means of "customer support" is to sue their customers. Not the best way to stay in business, if you ask me.
amazon mp3. Unless you're an audiophile and insist on lossless are just as good and DRM free as the ones you rip from a CD or Warez from whereever.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains. -- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
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Any price is fair if 99% of it goes directly to the artist and thus you can decide artist by artist what is fair. If 50% of that 99 cents is going to Apple for nothing more than providing the website and crappy player software then no, that's not just.
"Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it." -- Lore Sjöberg
This is a dual edged sword. I actually think this "pricing-scheme" is still faulty for the matter at hand. On one edge, I don't care for this type of sell through and don't use it. I'm happy with imeem, pandora and the other streaming audio sites, and I do own about 250 CDs (which I got for $5-10 each from retailers on sale). I am a bargain hunter as shown by my frugal price for purchased cds. I probably would pay $.25 per song, but it still feels wrong to me. On the other edge, a better form of sell through needs to be found. I've always felt like these things should be "given" to the public. But clearly the artist/author should be compensated. The question is, what would a system that offered both look like? I think Trent Reznor has the right idea with his recent ventures into online distribution. I don't really care for his music, but I applaud his paradigm. I was highly motivated by a recent article related to "free software" and I think it is relevant here: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/shouldbefree.html[^]
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Fantastic songs, by known artists can attract a pretty penny because they're good and they're known. 99c seems reasonable in this case, $14.85 is reasonable for an album with 15 fantastic tracks. Most albums, or for that matter music, is not fantastic. On average over the years I've found 2/3 of an album to be dross. I'll pay, and do pay, 99c for the few tracks worth buying. The album exists only because the cost of manufacture from recording to pressing made it economical in the past. In a world where the price of distribution is effectively 0 the economics become warped. I can see albums surviving as a collection of a lifetimes best works, a thematic musical piece of art or for niche collectors. In other words the exception rather then the rule. Is 99c worth spending on a track? That depends on the track and artist. New upcoming talent should be discounting, or distributing free. Established talent can shift for as much as they can get. It wouldn't truely be merit over marketing, as teenagers are a bunch of moronic sheep. But I believe it would provide a better experience for a diverse public.
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If the money goes directly to the artist, 1 cent a song would probably make the the owner of a good song very rich considering the huge worldwide market provided my the internet. 99 cents is way more than I would pay personally.
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Interestingly enough, here in Germany copier manufacturers pay a fee for each machine they sell (increasing price of course) which then gets tranfered to collecting societies (I hope that's the correct word). The same happens with recording media of (almost) any kind, from tapes to CD-Rs. As far as I understand that's because we're basically allowed to make copies for private use and if we do not break or circumvent any efficient copy protection to do this (yes, I know the question: Is a copy protection that can be broken or circumvented efficient? Has been debatted here since then. I don't know if there's any court ruling yet.).
Vautour wrote:
which then gets tranfered to collecting societies (I hope that's the correct word).
I think instead of societies you wanted agencies. It's hard to be sure though since you didn't exactly say what they do with it or how that works. I assume they use that pool to reimburse the copyright holders, etc. Not trying to offend, just offering some translation help (hopefully).
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I completely agree. I used to actually buy CD's all the time. I pretty much completely turned to piracy because I am always worried that the music I buy legally will not work when I do my "almost weekly" reshuffling of files, devices, etc. Just the other day I had a friend (he's not technically savvy) call me asking me how to load his iTunes-bought music into his wife's new workout mp3 player. There really is no "easy" answer. We used to not have this problem with CDs. Even though my music collection started out as almost 100% legit, I doubt there's 10% of my music that I actually paid for. I would love to pay for music, if I can actually have it afterward. I'm not paying 99 cents for something that I will not actually own. I am a software engineer, so I do believe that people should pay for IP, but the problem with the music industry is that their only means of "customer support" is to sue their customers. Not the best way to stay in business, if you ask me.
I think 99 cents is to expensive. I think 99 cents is resonable for a Music vid. I dont listen to 99% of the crap that comes out these days so i can get most of the music i like for £5 and under. If i can get it for that price you are better off getting the actual CD and burning a copy for yourself. On a rare occasion i might buy something that is more than £5 but it has to be something i love like Stevie Wonder. I would never ever ever buy anything from iTunes, bunch of robbers. And until the Music/Movie/Games business stops ripping people off by not letting you watch a legal DVD that you buy in a different region to where you bought your DVD player then people will continue to download these items without paying. I still buy some cheap dvds because i use software on my PC that gets around the region rip off!
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Mrs. Flynn and I used to buy a lot of music from the iTunes store. Given that we didn't have iPods at the time, we had to painstakenly record everything to CD and rip back to MP3 (using iTunes) in order to use the tracks on our MP3 players. That's fine when you have a few albums or singles, but we now have over 100 albums and 400 individual tracks. We now have iPods, but we're still converting the songs to MP3 just in case we don't have iPods in the future -- not to mention our PS3s can't play DRM-protected AAC files... But we no longer buy music from iTunes, even though they've removed the DRM. We instead buy music from Amazon -- their pricing is about the same as iTunes (most times cheaper), they are already in MP3 format, and there is no DRM, hence no conversion. iTunes may be DRM free, but now most tracks we want are $1.29, and there's still the conversion to MP3 factor. We still buy the occasional CD, but most times the album on Amazon is $3 - $5(US) cheaper than the CD -- and in some cases much less than the CD. Pink Floyd's The Wall on CD is still around $30. Amazon has the complete album in MP3 format for $8.99. Most MP3s are between $.89 and $.99 per track. Worth every penny to me, and the people still get paid for their work. :-\ Flynn
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Yes, but so what?
Christopher Duncan wrote:
acceptable pricing is the issue?
Obviously it isn't. On the other hand, due to lack of portability, I would pay less for an iTune than for an MP3. No one should ever buy an iPod; buy a generic MP3 player instead.
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Christopher Duncan wrote:
is 99 cents per song a fair price for music?
No, I listen to music for free on the wireless.
Christopher Duncan wrote:
why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Probably because you can get it for free on the wireless :)
print "http://www.codeproject.com".toURL().text Ain't that Groovy?
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MidwestLimey wrote:
It wouldn't truely be merit over marketing, as teenagers are a bunch of moronic sheep
Please say that was a joke.
Why do you think it is a joke? :confused: 75-85% of adults (with many more years of experience than teenagers, I might add) are moronic and/or sheep. This is after they have gotten over the massive hormone surges of adolescence, and more or less figured out how to deal with the world. People like to: 1) follow with out thinking X| 2) stop and complain about where they are lead :( 3) follow while complaining :doh: Hence, moronic sheep. :sheeple: (is there an emoticon for that?) I was a teenager. My children are teenagers. I have had many friends who were teenagers, either while they were my friends, or before I knew them, and we all have (with the exception of my children) made the same statement, at one time or another, and with good reason. This goes beyond anecdotal evidence. ;P Richard
Silver member by constant and unflinching longevity.
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Vautour wrote:
which then gets tranfered to collecting societies (I hope that's the correct word).
I think instead of societies you wanted agencies. It's hard to be sure though since you didn't exactly say what they do with it or how that works. I assume they use that pool to reimburse the copyright holders, etc. Not trying to offend, just offering some translation help (hopefully).
Nope, I'm not offended. English isn't my native language so it's quite normal not knowing the correct expression for such things and now I've learnde a new word. Thank you or that :) Yes, that's what I meant. There are different collecting agencies depending on what kind of medium you use. "VG Wort" (free translation: "collecting agency word") is the agency which gets the copier fees, as far as I know.
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From the previous thread and countless other conversations, one of the things I keep hearing over and over again is that record companies charge too much for CDs. If they were more reasonably priced, so the reasoning goes, there wouldn't be such massive piracy. They're being greedy and unfair, and consequently it's justice of some sort to take their music for free. I'm also often reminded that the old music business model is now dead, and people point to the success of iTunes and the 99 cent song / $10 album to highlight the fact that this is a better way of doing business and one that the public finds acceptable. For the sake of comparing apples to apples (apologies for the pun), let's limit our question to the titles available on iTunes, which of course are also heavily pirated nonetheless. With that in mind, is 99 cents per song a fair price for music? If so, as iTunes' success would seem to demonstrate, why is piracy still rampant if acceptable pricing is the issue?
Christopher Duncan Author of The Career Programmer and Unite the Tribes www.PracticalUSA.com
Well, I think it's better than the alternative. Paying 99 cents for a single song you like is much better than paying $10-15 for the same song when you have to buy a CD full of stuff you don't like to get that same song. Would it be nice if it was cheaper? Of course. But there are a lot of costs in producing recorded music. People talk a lot about how they think the distribution costs of things over the Internet is zero. That's simply not true. Servers and bandwidth are expensive, especially since you have to maintain enough of both to handle maximum loads in a worst-case scenario (i.e., the release of a popular song). Writing or buying software to run the servers is expensive. True, virtual distribution scales much better than distribution of physical media, but it still adds up and costs quite a bit of money, which has to be passed along to the customer. Another hidden expense that almost everyone misses is credit card charges. Credit cards typically charge a percentage of each transaction, but they also usually have a minimum transaction fee. When I was writing software that dealt with credit card billing a few years ago, we had a minimum per-transaction fee of around 35 cents. I'm sure that's flexible depending on your transaction volume, but given that the people who price songs have to assume the worst case (everyone is going to be purchasing songs one at a time), that's a huge chunk of that 99 cents. All of this is to say that companies that charge 99 cents may not be making much per song. They're hoping to make it up in volume. Ed
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Nope, I'm not offended. English isn't my native language so it's quite normal not knowing the correct expression for such things and now I've learnde a new word. Thank you or that :) Yes, that's what I meant. There are different collecting agencies depending on what kind of medium you use. "VG Wort" (free translation: "collecting agency word") is the agency which gets the copier fees, as far as I know.
Glad you took the lesson as I intended instead of the offense I didn't. :-D That is an interesting system I guess. Thanks for sharing. Of course, now they'll raise prices for everything so those who pay for things get charged extra to pay for the people who don't. Kind of like the more honest you are, the more you suffer. LOL