The private copyright levy is a tax charged to consumers when they buy media and electronics capable of making copies. The idea was pioneered in Germany in 1965, and has since spread to most of Europe, Canada, and other parts of the world. It originally applied to cassette tapes, but has since been expanded to include external hard disks, storage media like flash drives, CD-Rs, computers (in Germany, at least), and now mobile devices.

The amount collected, and the devices affected, vary from one country to the next. Spain, for example, repealed its private copying levy in 2012, only to decide to pay the tax out of its own coffers. Finland followed suit this year, and the UK does not collect a levy. The French private copying levy, on the other hand, raised €208 million in 2013, and represents almost 60% of the total collected in the European Union.

New stuff In Germany leads to fees up to 6.25 euros per mobile phone and 8.75 EUR per Tablet.

https://www.bitkom.org/Presse/Presseinformation/Einigung-bei-Urheberabgaben-fuer-Smartphones-und-Tablets.html

Most people do not understand it right. It is not payment for being a pirate. It is tax for you to be able to legally make copy for yourself (for backup purposes or such) of content you bough and also takes into accounts "illegal" usage as allowing your wife to listen to bought track.

Modern copyright proponents must be really declared enemy of the state and hunted down until last one will be brought to central plaza and executed.