PLR in Israel

israel

Action on PLR was taken in 1986 after pressure from the Association of Hebrew Writers which brought about the appointing of a government committee. This committee recommended making payments to authors for the lending out of their books..

Accordingly a committee to manage a PLR scheme was set up comprising representatives of the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Association of Hebrew Writers. This committee set out the rules for the new system of authors’ payments.

The Ministry’s Libraries Division has responsibility for making a survey of book loans and distributing payments. Any appeals about eligibility for the scheme are handled by an appeals committee chaired by a judge.
Eligible for payment are:

Authors who are citizens of the state of Israel, who write in either Hebrew or Arabic or have had their books translated into one of these languages.
Widows or widowers of authors who are eligible for the payment.

In the loans survey are included the following categories of work:

Adult fiction; plays that have not been acted on stage; poetry; literary essays; biographies testimonies of the Holocaust; children’s books (fiction, poetry etc.).
Non-fiction books (Including reference books) are not included in the survey.

Only authors, who are permanent residents of Israel and also registered on time at the Library Department, are included in this arrangement.

Payments are not considered royalty payments but rather payments as support from the state for original literature.
Although there have been two PLR bills suggested by Members of Parliament, the law was not passed in the Knesset and the scheme continues to operate with no statutory basis.

The survey is taken in 20 Hebrew sample public libraries throughout the country, half of which are city libraries and half are village libraries.

The survey is taken once a year in January and February asking the number of times the book was lent out the previous year. Likewise, the survey is taken in 5-6 public libraries in the Arab sector. The loans data received from the sample libraries are maintained on the computer at the Ministry’s Libraries Division and then grossed up to estimate the national loans of each author in every literary category.

The different book categories carry different weight:

30% of the amount is allotted to childrens’books,
70% of the amount is allotted to adult literature,

Loans of poetry books are tripled.

Each year according to the sum allotted to the project, there are limits to both the maximum and minimum to the payments sent to the authors. The maximum is 2% of the total and the minimum is NIS 100. The amount sent to each author is calculated by computer taking into account the number of the author’s loans and the total sum allotted for the project.

Taxes are taken from these payments according to the documents each author presents.

10% of the total sum goes to the expenses involved in taking the survey and to the division of libraries administration.