Here in Croatia whoever plays music publicly (e.g. in a bar, be it from CDs or radio) has to pay royalty. Failing to do so is misdemeanor and subject to fine. There are organizations (some are private companies) which collect that royalties, but I have no idea how do they distribute them.

A friend of mine, a misdemeanor judge, told me about a bar owner's successfull defence: he was playing only free stuff downloaded from mp3.com.


A word about patents: you don't have to 'figure out' how to duplicate a patented technology. One of key ideas behing patents is that the holder has to disclose protected technology sufficiently to enable an average practitioner in the field to duplicate it.