> Re: [LINK] In other news....

[Ivan Trundle]

On 26/06/2007, at 12:24 PM, Stewart Fist wrote:

> It would be interesting to see what would happen if the author of a  
> book
> took out an injunction to stop a library from holding or lending  
> his book --
> on the grounds that the library (or at least the librarians) are  
> making
> money out of the lending, and that their action is depriving him of  
> rightful
> income from sales.
>
> I have no idea what the outcome would be.  I doubt that its even been
> tested.
>
>  Tony might know.

I refer you to the Public Lending Rights program, Stewart. It's a  
method of protecting the balance between a citizen's right to have  
access to material, and for due compensation to be paid to the author.

In a past life, I've had reason to know about this, though Tony might  
have a deeper knowledge-base to work from. I might have been a  
beneficiary of PLR, if only I had understood it better at the time.

PLR was initiated in Denmark in the 1940s, and has been adopted by  
around 20-30 or so other countries (including Australia, since 1974).  
It's an attempt to compensate authors of works.

Some countries accept published works, some government documents,  
some solely fiction works (Norway, for example), whilst some exclude  
or include scholarly texts.

Interestingly, though, IFLA (the International Federation of Library  
Associations) has deemed that lending rights can jeopardise free  
access to the services of public libraries.

For more information: <http://www.plrinternational.com/>

Warmly

iT