The German equivalent is called ELV/Lastschrift and allows you to retrieve money from a bank account, but the owner can revoke that within a few weeks.
Japan also has a system to automatically withdraw money from someone elses account, eg for rent, but requires the account owner to authorize the other account first. does germany not have that step?
There's a pretty big discussion/shitstorm going on in the Berlin Startups Facebook group.
The trademark owners claim that they want to use the licensing fees to support non-commercial events, quotation: "I think it's worth trying. If not, there sure will be other ways to finance non-commercial projects. I any cases it's better that it's a trademark of a non-commercial project, than of some cease-and-desist law firm."
I totally disagree with that whole idea though. Makes us Germans look ridiculous :-).
