Ludwigsvorstadt, Munich

All the (partially acta-induced) discussion about intellectual property and payments to artists have brought the copy center solution back into public awareness: In these copy centers without doubts a lot of intellectual property gets multiplied without proper licensing. Because it seemed inappropriate to criminalize this business (similarly to the introduction of the music cassette decades earlier), it was decided to introduce a fee on the copiers, depending on size and capacity. A similar mechanism is now favorized by some politicians to solve the problem of filesharing. Without doubt it would interfere less with privacy rights than the comprehensive spying on all internet connections, as it is done currently at least in France.