It seems Philips has decided to cut CD-R royalties by almost half.

Currently, $0.045 USD from every (sanctioned) CD-R manufactured is paid to research giant Royal Philips Electronics. Under a new licensing plan, media manufacturers will only pay $0.025 USD per disc. For the average 100 CD-R pack, that translates to a $2.00 USD savings.

The move to reduce licensing costs is an effort by Philips to reduce the amount of unlicensed media being produced in South East Asia. Two of the largest CD-R producers, Ritek and CMC Magnetics, produce licensed media for Philips. Whether or not the royalty reduction will actually translate to cheaper discs to the end user seems unclear - but Ritek and CMC will now have the ability to compete with rogue media with the new lower licensing plan.

This news article was written on January 20, 2006, quoting Xinhua News.