Untitled Document

berlin 2005 conference

report

Delegates from 25 countries gathered in Berlin 21-23 September 2005 to attend the 6th International PLR Conference. This year marked the 10th anniversary of the first PLR conference, held in the UK in 1995. It was fitting that this anniversary conference should be held in Germany, a country with a great literary tradition and a well-established and well-run PLR system. The conference was organised and hosted by VG Wort, the German collecting society which looks after secondary rights of copyright in literary works for authors and publishers, and which includes responsibility for German PLR.

Delegates were welcomed to Berlin by Barbara Kisseler, the Permanent Secretary of Culture of the State of Berlin. Prof Dr Ferdinand Melichar, Managing Director of VG Wort, and Jim Parker, Registrar of PLR in the UK and Co-ordinator of the PLT Network, then provided introductory presentations reflecting on the growth of the PLR Network since the first conference in 1995 when only 15 countries had PLR systems. Some 38 countries currently recognised PLR in their legislation and of these 22 had working systems. PLR was now on the European Commission’s agenda and this would be reflected in the presentations to be heard during the conference.

The European theme was taken up by Danièle Muffat-Jeandet from the European Commission.
She described the provisions of the 1992 Lending Right Directive and the wider context of the Directive as part of the Commission’s harmonisation plans in the field of intellectual property. She also explained the Commission’s interpretation of the various derogations and flexibilities allowed to Member States by the Directive. Following a successful court case against Belgium for failing to give effect to the Directive in its national legislation, the Commission was now challenging the governments of countries such as Ireland, Italy, Spain and Portugal over their exclusion of publicly funded libraries from PLR obligations. The Commission was also in discussion with the governments of some of the Scandinavian countries over the legality of their language eligibility criteria (see also below.)

The acceptability under European and international copyright law of the national language eligibility criteria set by some of the Scandinavian PLR schemes was the subject of a debate led by Peter Schønning of the Danish Ministry of Culture and Professor Michel Walter. This raised important issues of definition: can PLR be used a means of supporting a nation’s culture and language by confining payment to authors writing in that language, or must PLR schemes be opened to all authors of Member States regardless of the language they write in? Discussions on this issue between the Commission and the countries concerned will continue and there will be much interest in the outcome as it will undoubtedly have implications for other Member States.

In terms of the PLR situation in the ten new Member States, a useful summary of the status quo had been prepared by Péter Gyértyánfy, Director General of ARTIJUS in Hungary. This was circulated to delegates and formed the basis of a discussion on the problems facing authors in several countries where only limited progress has been made towards proper implementation of the 1992 Directive. This was supported by a series of printed reports from 21 countries on PLR developments since the last conference in 2003. These countries included Australia, New Zealand and Canada, which provide a valuable reminder that PLR is an international phenomenon and not just confined to Europe. The reports were circulated to delegates and are reproduced in the Conference proceedings (see below). The reports from the UK and Estonia were illustrated by demonstrations from Janice Forbes (UK) and Ainiki Valjataga (Estonia) of the new on-line registration systems which are now available in those countries for authors to use when applying for PLR.

This was an excellent conference for a number of reasons: the wide range of countries represented enabled delegates to get a good picture of the progress that is being made, particularly in Europe, in the establishment of new PLR systems while drawing attention to the continuing problems being faced by authors seeking recognition of their lending rights in several well-established Member States. The discussions on how far PLR can play a role in a member state’s cultural support system before it infringes the EU’s rules on discrimination have important wider implications in Europe and will undoubtedly feature in future conferences.

The conference proceedings, Public Lending Right Today, 6th International PLR Conference, Berlin, 21-23 September 2005, have been published by VG Wort in a handsome 95 page volume. Copies may be ordered from Irmgard Schmitt (e-mail: irmgard.schmitt@vgwort.de).