The entertainment industry continues to cry foul over music and movie piracy. Although some of the furor stems from loss of distribution control by content owners, the chief complaint is far more simple: They"re angry because they"re presumably losing money as potential customers turn to free or lower-cost pirated copies of their movies and music instead of the real deal.
To recoup these losses, content owners can sue copyright infringers for monetary damages. But many countries, including the United States, have at various points adopted a different and far more direct solution: A levy or fee on the sale of recording equipment and/or blank media that could be used to copy protected works. You and I never see those fees spelled out--they"re rolled into the price of the products we buy. (So are many less controversial royalty fees, such as those paid to patent holders for technologies used in a given product.) Manufacturers hand over the fees to an agency that then distributes the funds to musicians, composers, and record companies. Which groups collect, and how much they get varies by country and by agency.