PLR in Netherlands

netherlands

History

At the end of 1995 new legislation with regard to lending and rental right became effective. The legislation is based upon the European Lending and Rental Rights Directive. Both rental and lending of works are to be regarded as a communication to the public under Dutch copyright law. The definitions of lending and rental are taken from the text of the Directive. The legislator has derogated from the absolute right of rights owners with regard to the lending of works. The lending of works is allowed if a payment of equitable remuneration is made to the rights owners involved. There are three exceptions of this general rule.

The lending of software is only allowed with the authorisation of the rights owners. Although CD-ROMS with general information contain software, they still fall under the legal licence. If this software is only used to disclose the information on the CDROM and if it does not form the main produce in these carriers, those products fall under the general rules of lending right. Libraries and Stichting Leenrecht (the organisation set up in 1991 to represent rightsholders) are still in the process of defining the products which are subject to a lending license and those which fall under the regime of an absolute right.

The second exception is lending of works by school and university libraries, and by the Royal Library, which is allowed without payment of a remuneration. Finally, no remuneration is due if the organisation which lends the works can prove that the rights owner has declined the right to an equitable remuneration.

The level of remuneration

The lending right legislation sets out the basis on which the equitable remuneration for the lending of works is calculated. A separate organisation has been established. In that organisation representatives of rights owners on the one side and user groups on the other are represented. In order to promote the negotiating process this organisation has an independent chairman who is appointed by the Ministry of Justice in consultation with his colleague at Education, Culture and Science. If rights owners and user groups (libraries) cannot reach a common understanding, the independent chairman will make a decision, which is binding for all parties.

The following payments have been agreed for the year 2008.

	Loan (in €)
Books	0,1162
Audio	0,2716
Audio (hits)	1,0860
Video/DVD	0,2716
Video/DVD (hits)	1,0860
Multimedia	0,4927
Sheet music (complete works)	4,5000

The estimated collection is € 15,5 million for 2008.

Stichting Leenrecht does not distribute payments to the individual rights owners involved. In the Netherlands almost all rights owners have established their own collective organisations to deal with collective copyright matters such as reprography, cable and satellite, private copying etc. It is therefore agreed that Stichting Leenrecht will distribute the fees to these organisations, who will then distribute the fees to the individual rights owners. The distribution to foreign rights owners will in principal be done on the basis of reciprocal or unilateral contracts with sister organisations abroad.

Legal Matters

Extended loans - In the Netherlands there are principal discussions concerning the treatment of the extension of (book) loans, as this is not laid down in law. The position of Stichting Leenrecht is that an extended loan should be considered a new loan and that therefore public lending rights are due. The librairies disagree with this position. Consequently, both parties have decided to bring this issue before a court of law.

(updated July 2008)