PLR in France

FRANCE

PLR in France is administered by Sofia (Société Française des Intérêts des Auteurs de l’écrit).

The PLR Bill was adopted on June 18th 2003 and came into effect on August 1st 2003. Authors and publishers qualify for payment for the free lending of their books by public and private libraries, according to specific rules. The right is based on the number of copies of books bought by libraries and is equally shared between authors and publishers. A small part of it is granted to a new pension fund for writers and translators.

Around half of the funding for PLR derives from an annual flat-rate payment made by the State:

1.5 Euros payable for every member of the public registered with private and associative libraries (0.75 euro during the first year of implementation);
and 1 euro (0.5 euro during the first year) per student or scholar attending university libraries.

The other part comes from book suppliers. They pay an amount of 6% on the tax-free fixed price of the books bought by lending libraries of all kinds.

In the autumn of 2007, Sofia began distributing PLR royalties to authors and publishers, starting with compensation collected in 2003 and 2004. First payments totaled €10,772,208.

This figure was calculated to account for Sofia's operating expenses (11.6%) and the pension fund, both of which are deducted from the total (~€600,000). Payments were made to 11,241 eligible authors and 1,183 publishers, representing a total of 55,000 books.

The price per book sold to a public library was €2.29, divided equally between authors and publishers. For example, the author of a book that was bought 1,000 times would receive €1.14 x 1000. Authors and publishers receive payment only for books that are registered with an EAN13 code and covered under a publishing agreement.

Authors who are members of Sofia and other French organizations that collect funds receive their royalties directly. In most cases, however, payment is passed on through the publisher, which has the authors' addresses. This also applies to co-authors of a book when both authors are not members of Sofia. Authors can visit the Sofia website at www.la-sofia.org to see if their books are covered by PLR.

Money is redistributed only if a minimum of 15 copies of a book have been sold to libraries. This minimum threshold was adopted to keep Sofia’s payment costs reasonable. Earnings of less than €17.20 are not paid out according to an agreement drawn up by the Sofia Committee board. Small sums are carried forward into subsequent years until 2005 and will be paid out once they reach the minimum of 15 copies sold.

A second round of PLR payments was made in May 2008, covering the year 2005. These royalties totaled €13,599,604, and were paid out according to the same rules adopted by the Sofia General Assembly in April 2007. The price per book purchased by a library was €2.23. Sofia’s operating expenses represented 11.06%. 44,954 authors were eligible to receive a payment, along with 1,329 publishers. Sofia intends to distribute payments for the 2006 year in the autumn of 2008.

Sofia has also agreed to pay authors who live abroad through the fund-collecting organizations in their own countries, and will sign reciprocal agreements to that end.

Since the system began operating in 2003, PLR royalties have contributed significantly to the earnings of authors and publishers. Sofia is also attempting to roll out the system to illustrators in 2009.

(updated October 2008)