Untitled Document

copenhagen 1997 conference

REPORT

The conference was organised by the Nordic Public Lending Right countries and hosted by the Danish PLR Office at the Molktes Palais in Copenhagen. It attracted over fifty delegates from fourteen countries, eleven of which already recognise authors' lending rights and have systems in place to administer them. There has been growing interest in PLR issues following the first PLR conference in the United Kingdom in 1995, and the 1992 EC Directive on Rental and Lending which required Member States to make provision in their national legislation for an exclusive lending right for authors.

The conference provided an opportunity for delegates to hear at first hand how the PLR systems in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden operate and to understand the `cultural' background to their development. As with all countries which have PLR systems, payments are made from public funds in the Nordic countries to authors in recognition of the use made of their works in libraries. However, the PLR schemes in Scandinavia exist to encourage writing in the native language of each country and do not recognise a copyright-based lending right as prescribed by the EC Rental Directive.

In contrast, a paper describing the new copyright-based Dutch PLR system, which by its nature must take account of principles such as national treatment, provided delegates with details of a system modelled on the EC Directive.

PLR, of course, is not just a European phenomenon, and speakers from Canada and Australia discussed moves to have the Canadian PLR scheme underpinned by legislation, and the dropping by the Australian government (because of budgetary constraints) of plans to extend authors' lending rights to school libraries.

The conference discussions were particularly timely as the European Commission had just announced a review of the progress made by Member States in implementing the lending right aspects of the Rental Directive. Delegates from France, Ireland and Belgium - all countries which have yet to take action on PLR - attended the conference and went away with a range of options for giving effect to the Directive.

Looking to the future, delegates debated the relevance to PLR of the lending of new media and on-line use in libraries.

The conference strengthened the existing links between the fifteen PLR countries and has resulted in the establishment of a more formal network. Delegates were particularly keen that countries in Eastern Europe, Asia and the Far East be encouraged to attend the next conference planned for 1999 and to be hosted by the Canadian PLR Office in Ottawa.