PLR in Slovak Republic

SLOVAK REPUBLIC

The 2003 copyright legislation provides for an exclusive lending right.

LITA, the collecting society representing authors of literary, dramatic, audiovisual works and works of visual art, has been conducting licensing negotiations already since 1998. There are about 6.000 public libraries in Slovakia, inclusive of libraries in educational and scientific institutions, which lend about 28 million works a year. Both LITA and the Ministry of Culture have considered it impossible to conclude licensing contracts with all of them. After lengthy negotiations a scheme acceptable for the Ministry, the libraries and the authors (represented by LITA) has been established. The agreement on the tariff has not been reached yet.

The scheme was developed and it currently functions as follows:

In February 2007 the Copyright Act together with the Act on libraries were amended. The amendment introduced new obligation for the National Library to sign a collective licensing agreement with LITA and to pay royalties for public lending in all libraries included in the library system of the Slovak Republic.

In December 2007 the Ministry issued the Measure, which constitutes the method of payment of royalties to the rights holders for acts of public lending. The royalty for the respective calendar year should be calculated by taking the amount of loans for the previous year and multiplying it with the tariff. Despite the outcomes of negotiations between the Ministry, the National Library and LITA the Ministry limited the tariff to a maximum of 0.50 SKK (0.016 €) and did not introduce the rules of dependence of the tariff on the standard of living.

The maximum tariff set by the Measure is the lowest tariff the authors could accept. Though the Ministry was fully aware of this, it allocated for the year 2008 only 6 million SKK, making the tariff 0.213 SKK (0.007 €) per loan. This tariff was contained in the draft of the collective licensing agreement submitted to LITA by the National Library. For the year 2008 LITA will fight for a tariff in amount of 0.50 SKK.

(updated July 2008)