Public Lending Rights

A Public Lending Right (PLR) programme, is a programme intended to either compensate authors for the potential loss of sales from their works being available in public libraries, or as a governmental support of the arts, through support of works available in public libraries, such as books, music and artwork.

Twenty-eight countries have a PLR programme, and others are considering adopting one. Canada, the United Kingdom, all the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel, Australia, and New Zealand currently have PLR programmes. There is ongoing debate in France about implementing one. There is also a move towards having a Europe-wide PLR programme administered by the European Union.

The first PLR programme was initiated in Denmark in 1941. However, it was not properly implemented until 1946 due to World War II. The idea spread slowly from country to country and many nations' PLR programs are quite recent developments.

PLR programmes vary from country to country. Some, like Germany and the Netherlands, have linked PLR to copyright legislation and have made libraries liable to pay authors for every book in their collection. Other countries do not connect PLR to copyright. For a nation like Canada or Australia the majority of funds would be going to authors outside the country, much of it to the United States, which is unpalatable to those nations.

In Denmark, the current programme is considered a type of governmental support of the arts, not reimbursement of potential lost sales. Types of works supported are books, music, and visual artworks, created and published in Denmark, and available in public and school libraries.

How amounts of payment are determined also varies from country to country. Some pay based on how many times a book has been taken out of a library, others use a simpler system of payment based simply on whether a library owns a book or not.

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