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PLR 2006 Seminar

REPORT ON THE PLR SEMINAR, MADRID, MARCH 2006

The seminar was held at Gran Melia Fenix Hotel and was attended by speakers and delegates from authors’ organisations in 18 different European countries.

This was the third seminar, the first was held in London 2003 and the second in Rome 2004. Kopinor, the reproduction rights organisation of Norway paid for the delegates travel costs and the hosts ACE (Asociacion Colegial de Escritores de Espana) covered the costs in Madrid for delegates. Special thanks go to Andres Sorrel for all his work in organising the seminar and to John Stangelle of the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators’ Association. Sessions were chaired by Jim Parker of the UK’s PLR Office.

The priority given to the seminar was the Spanish situation and to the difficulties that they are experiencing in getting agreement for PLR. Opposition is coming from librarians in Spain and they are concerned that funding for PLR would come from their budgets. Therefore one of the speakers was Rob Froud, the Head of Cultural Services Libraries, Arts and Information Service and the Chair if the Society of Chief Librarians in England. In the UK, PLR enjoys support from librarians and the purpose of Rob’s speech was to illustrate that it is possible for libraries and PLR to work together. Patricia Riera from gave a speech on Preparing for PLR in Spain.

Other speakers included Jim Parker, Registrar of UK PLR, who talked about ‘the International Situation’; Juan Molla, Chairman of the Spanish organisation ACE who give a report on PLR in Spain; John Stanghelle, from the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Union, who gave a speech on PLR in Norway: the experience of one of the oldest PLR nations. In contrast Jurga Braziuniene, Senior consultant LATGA-A give a talk on the latest country to have a working PLR System Lithuania; Andres Sorrel gave a speech How do we take PLR forwarding Spain.

Unfortunately Daniele Muffat-Jeandet from the European Commission was unable to attend the conference. However, she sent a report of the current situation regarding the European Directive on Lending Right. This was read out by Maureen Duffy.

As with other conferences, there were reports from delegates on the progress, or lack of it, in their own countries.