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ottawa 1999 CONFERENCE

REPORT

The third international conference on lending rights was hosted by the Canadian Public Lending Right Commission and held at the National Library of Canada in Ottawa 1-3 October. Fifteen countries now recognise the right of authors and other creators to be remunerated for the lending of their works by libraries; other countries, in western and eastern Europe particularly, are making progress towards setting up their own PLR systems. The conference provided an opportunity for delegates from the international PLR community to discuss developments in the existing PLR countries since the last conference two years ago, and to review progress towards wider recognition of the lending right principle.

Central to PLR developments in Europe has been the 1992 EU Directive on Rental and Lending which created a new copyright-based lending right for creators enabling them to license or prohibit the lending of their works by libraries. The derogations built into the Directive have allowed Member States much flexibility in how they implement the lending right provisions. Silke von Lewinski of the Max Planck Institut in Munich gave a paper summarising the review that she had undertaken on behalf of the European Commission which looked at implementation of the Directive. She reported that some countries have taken full advantage of the derogation available to them to avoid setting up any sort of PLR system, eg Italy, Portugal and Spain. In others, such as Belgium and Ireland, the Directive remains to be implemented. However, Dr Lewinski was of the view that the Directive represented an important first step towards wider recognition of PLR. It remained to be seen what follow-up action, if any, the Commission would take on the basis of the findings.

A particular theme of the conference was PLR in the Americas. To date only Canadian authors have been successful in getting lending rights recognised. Kay Murray of the Writers Guild in New York described how PLR has made little headway in the United States and is not currently a priority issue with American writers.

There was more room for optimism, however, from papers describing developments in Australia and France. In the former, government funding has been provided to resurrect earlier plans to extend the PLR system to book lending by school libraries. In France, a government enquiry has recommended the establishment of a PLR system.

The Conference discussions illustrated the wide variety of approach in each of the countries with PLR systems. The Scandinavian states see their PLR systems as a means of supporting their cultural policies, while others regard PLR as payment for use on the copyright model. But there was agreement among delegates over the usefulness of the PLR Network set up following the first lending right conference in 1995 which is coordinated by the UK’s PLR office and provides a focus for the exchange of information and provision of advice to countries setting up their own PLR systems. The next conference is planned for 2001 and will be held in Australia.