Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckieTigger
Company that takes care of all appears to work non-profit, but operation cost gets paid out of the pot.
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The VG Wort is an incorporated society (rather than a company) that is under legal supervision of the German Patent Office (quite a unique construction, dating from 1958).
According to their
own publications (pdf), the operational costs and overhead amounted to 10,2 Mio EUR in 2012 which equals 9,3 % of revenue from within Germany, amounting to 115,35 Mio EUR in 2012. The fact that the split of the operational costs is not fully transparent is, well, frequently criticized (the salary of the board members is not made public).
There is a court case pending which still has to be decided by the Bundesgerichtshof (highest federal civil court) about the way the gains are split between the about 460.000 authors and 12.000 publishers who are represented by the VG Wort. The plaintiff argues that the publishers receive massive sums which rather have to be divided between the authors. Lower courts have returned decisions in favour of this view (see
press release by OLG München 2013 (pdf)).