PLR 2007 Seminar

PLR 2007 SEMINAR

REPORT ON THE PLR SEMINAR, budapest, april 2007

The Seminar was held at the Petőfi Museum of Literature and was attended by speakers and delegates from authors’ organisations from 21 European countries.

This was the fourth Seminar, the first was held in London 2003 followed by Rome 2004 and Madrid 2006. The Norwegian organisations NFF and Kopinor paid for the delegates’ travel costs and the Hungarian hosts covered costs in Budapest. Special thanks go to Anna Menyhért for all her work in organising the event. Sessions were chaired by Trond Andreassen of NFF and Jim Parker of the UK PLR office.

The reception was held at the Petőfi restaurant. Welcoming speeches were made by András Gerevich (President of József Attila Circle, Literary Association of Young Writers), Csilla E Cosorba (Director General of Petöfi Museum of Literature), István Magi(Head of Department of Arts, Ministry of Education and Culture) and Trond Andreassen (Secretary-General of the Norwegian Non-Fiction Writers and Translators Association, and President of the European Writers’ Congress).

Trond Andreassen opened the Seminar. Jim Parker gave a speech on the International PLR situation and developments since March 2006. Other speakers were Krisztián Grescso who gave a speech on PLR in Hungary from an author’s perspective, and Anikó Gyenge on the government’s plans for PLR in Hungary. Owen Atkinson from ALCS led a discussion on ‘Who or what should be covered by PLR in the future’.

Unfortunately, Danièle Muffat-Jeandet from the European Commission was unable to attend the Seminar. However, she sent a report on the Commission’s progress in securing implementation of the EU Lending Right Directive by Member States, and this was read out by Maureen Duffy.

The main purpose of the Seminar was to review the progress of Member States over the last year in implementing the PLR provisions of the 1992 Directive. Updates were given by delegates from:-

Member States that have been the subject of legal action by the Commission:

Belgium, Ireland, Italy & Spain

Member States where legislation has recently been introduced:

Czech Republic, Slovak Republic & Luxembourg

Member States where PLR developments are awaited – Who will be Next?

Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece & Poland

New PLR Systems:

France, Estonia, Slovenia, Latvia & Lithuania

Since the last Seminar much progress has been made in terms of getting PLR legislation in place in Member States, but there is still a long way to go in countries like Poland and Portugal. A major concern emerging from the discussions was the relatively low levels of funding being allocated to the new PLR systems by governments which delegates felt should be drawn to the attention of the Commission for action.

It was agreed that the next seminar should take place in Croatia in 2009.