Royalties from Library Book Borrowing

I still can’t measure the depth of my agog that in the UK and Canada, authors are paid royalties each time their book is borrowed. In the UK, it’s called the Public Lending Right, and authors receive 5.9 pence per borrow, or, about .08 cents US. The maximum an author can earn is £6600, or just under $10,000.00 US. The program is designed to “compensate… authors for the potential loss of sales from their works being available in public libraries,” according to Wikipedia. Not only is it a source of some revenue, but it’s also a confirmation to authors that their book is being borrowed and, one would presume, read.

I’m seriously crapping myself sideways over this idea. I’m just floored. Where does this money come from? According to the PLR website:

PLR is funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and in 2007-08 received £7.63 million pounds in grant-in-aid, of which £6.66 million was distributed to authors. Funding for 2008-09 has been set at £7.4 million.

Holy crapping damn! I’m not sure how things are in your world, but here in the NJ/NY area, the news is flooded with reports of Governors Corzine and Paterson cutting budgets with twenty-five foot long hedge trimmers, which is all good and wonderful when you speak of fiscal awareness in broad terms, but when programs you use and need are cut entirely, well, things are going to be set on fire before either state’s budget passes.  So I don’t think that it’s even remotely possible even on the Planet What the Fuck that royalty payments might be created for US authors whose books are borrowed from US libraries, especially considering the fight to fund those libraries in the first place. But still: WOW. Double WOW.

Do you think such a model would be possible in the US? (Was that the sound of a librarian somewhere in America hitting her head on the returns cart as she fell over laughing?) Do you enjoy such a payment each year from your country’s public library system?

 

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General Bitching...

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  1. JoanneL says:

    Ah well, I read it all wrong again.

    I thought that it would be an idea to tax all major league sports teams in the U.S. a penny a ticket and that those monies would be marked for the library systems and payment to authors for the use of their work.

    Last year over 4 million people bought tickets just for the NY Yankees. Would owners begrudge the tax write-off of the penny on each sale and would the libraries & authors benefit from those pennies? Too simple? Too difficult?

  2. robinb says:

    And this

    As for PLR payments, here’s a complete description of the PLR system in Australia: http://www.arts.gov.au/literature/lending_rights/public_lending_right_-_guidelines_for_claimants The payment is apparently on the number of copies held by libraries and not on how often the book is checked out. “The PLR rates of payment under the 2006-07 PLR scheme were $1.47 per copy of each eligible book for creators and 36.75 cents per copy of each eligible book for publishers. For the 2006-07 program, 8866 book creators and publishers received PLR payments… The amount of a PLR payment for a book is calculated by multiplying the relevant PLR rate of payment by the estimated number of copies of the book. For example, if the 2006-07 estimated number of copies of a book was 200, the creator’s PLR payment would be $280 and the publisher’s PLR payment would be $70.” “Books are surveyed annually for three consecutive financial years following their year of publication. If, in the third year, a book is still held in sufficient numbers in public lending libraries, it will be resurveyed every three years. Books scoring less than 50 copies in the third or subsequent surveys are dropped from the survey cycle.”

    makes it all right for me.  I think this is great.  If you want to take the number of copies I buy and do some fancy math (I hate math) and work out an amount to pay authors from the fund you have set up for that, wonderful.  I still think it should apply to all libraries, and not just public libraries, but the rest is all good.  But the idea of repeating that charge every time a book is checked out seems way too strange for my Americanized brain.  Thanks, Australia! 

    And I certainly can’t speak for other people, but let me just be very, really, absolutely, CRYSTAL CLEAR:  I DO NOT NOW, NOR HAVE I EVER, THOUGHT THAT AUTHORS SHOULD NOT GET PAID FOR THEIR WORK.  NOT NOW.  NOT EVER.  OF COURSE YOU ALL SHOULD BE PAID FOR WHAT YOU DO JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE WHO PROVIDES A SERVICE.  I don’t know how this became a conversation about how “we” think you should write for free or for some “honor” or whatever the hell.  I don’t think that.  If I didn’t love books (and, consequently, authors) I wouldn’t be doing the job I do.  I don’t work for free, and I certainly don’t expect anyone else to either.  Of course, I never SAID I did, but I thought I needed to get that down in writing.

  3. Lindsay says:

    But, the fact that only public libraries are seen as the culprits makes me sad.

    The thing is though, it’s not punitive towards public libraries.  We love libraries!  The PLR does not mean that libraries have less money to buy books – library budgets are completely separate from the funds used to pay authors these royalties.  It’s not robbing Peter to pay Paul. 

    But as an avid library user, I have definitely borrowed plenty of books that (funds permitting) I would otherwise have bought if I were desperate enough to read them.  I don’t feel bad about that – it’s the purpose of libraries, and if I really like a book I’ll buy a copy anyway – but I honestly don’t see anything wrong with a smidgen of tax money going to authors of books which I have read (and hopefully enjoyed!) but not bought.  It doesn’t hurt anyone, least of all public libraries, and I hope that it does some good.

  4. Lindsay says:

    Oops, I was writing my last comment as robinb posted again so … take it as a general remark 😉

  5. The Australian system is a little different from the UK’s. The PLR is not calculated on the basis of number of times the book is borrowed, but:

    ‘is determined by the estimated number of copies of eligible books which are held in the Australian public lending libraries. This information is obtained from an annual survey of the books held in a sample of public lending libraries selected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. If 50 or more copies of an eligible book are estimated to be held in Australian public lending libraries a payment may be made.

    (source of quote)

    We also have the parallel Educational Lending Right system, which relates to the number of copies of books held by educational institutions. PLR and ELR are only payable to Australian citizens.

    However, like the UK, the PLR and ELR systems are administered federally, while libraries are funded at the state & local level, so there is no impact on individual library budgets.

    I don’t know how much it pays to authors on an individual basis. My book, published in Sept last year, will be counted (I hope!) in the 2009 survey, for which payment apparently isn’t made until 2010.

  6. Elizabeth says:

    There are still many Brits, French, Germans etc. etc. who believe, as a matter of ideological conviction, that certain things – like health-care, education, libraries, museums – should be free

    I know that this is a bit off topic – but anyhoo
    Museums and art gallerys are only free in England because of the campaigning of the Art Fund http://www.artfund.org/ which raises money to buy works of art that are about to be sold abroad for the nation. In most European countries although there may be one free day a week entrance to museums and art gallerys is not free. This is a fairly recent devolpment, it happened in the 90s (sorry can’t remeber the exact date). As much as a love Labour they may have approved the scheme but it wasn’t their idea and the funding for artworks in Britain is deplorable and many if not most museums and art gallerys would not be able to survive let alone buy new works if it wasn’t for the Art Fund and similar organisations.
    End rant.

  7. Sorry – by the time I’d read 75+ comments and got my brain in gear enough to post, the Australian stuff had already been posted.

    But just to note to someone who wondered why public libraries only are affected – there are very few private borrowing libraries here, and I suspect that they’re incorporated in this somehow, anyway. Plus ELR covers educational libraries (schools, unis, etc.)

  8. Now that the first caffeine of the morning has kicked in, and I’ve thought about this a bit more, there’s another aspect that hasn’t been mentioned. The objectives of the PLR/ELR in Australia are two-fold:

      *  to make payments to eligible Australian creators and publishers on the basis that income is lost from the availability of their books in public lending libraries.
      * to support the enrichment of Australian culture by encouraging the growth and development of Australian writing and publishing.

    The first one has been discussed here, and some people agree, some people don’t. The second objective, however, is also important, and relates to one of the huge issues smaller countries face: supporting local cultural production.

    We’ve got 22 million people in Australia. Our cultural markets are flooded with US and (to a slightly lesser extent) UK imports. Given the small size of our market, it is difficult for an Australian author to make a living from Australian book sales alone. (Possible, especially in crime fiction, but difficult.)

    While we have quite a few wonderful Australian romance authors who make a living from writing, in most cases those authors are acquired first by a US publisher, and then published here. Australian book sales are only a small part of their earnings. For authors who write distinctly Australian books, it is much harder to be published elsewhere, even when the book is doing well here.

    So, the second objective of the PLR/ELR in our context means that Australian authors who are included in library collections across the country are recognised by the government for their contribution to our culture, and given a little extra support to continue to do so.

  9. theladyferris says:

    Sarah, thanks for your enthusiasm for the PLR.  It’s lovely to be reminded that the UK isn’t a *total* crapbasket!

  10. Nannette says:

    How about, instead of giving the authors cash, the authors take a tax writeoff for library reads? This avoids the problem of flagrant inefficiency in funds distribution and the problem of raising taxes to pay for it. In fact, you could do it in a way that didn’t require the libraries to report checkouts at all – just set a standard. You assume that all paperbacks circulate once a month for three years, and all hardcovers circulate once a month for ten years, or whatever, and just require publishers to track the number of copies sold to libraries. The publishers could get a write-off, too, as an incentive to track, since they also lose money. It would be less fair to megasellers and overcompensate niche writers but it would be a start.

  11. joanne says:

    The part that I’m not understanding is, there are authors who make the majority of their income from library book fees?  And there are publishers who print only library books?  Am I understanding this correctly?  It must be another one of those cultural chasms, and I’m not trying to sound insulting, so please don’t take it that way;  but if it’s true that some authors make the majority of their income through library book rentals, this sounds more like a subsidy for authors than anything else.  Does the author get paid royalties when the library buys the book and also every time it’s borrowed?  And what about donated books?  Are they allowed, and if so, does the author get royalties on those also?  My library has a huge section of paperbacks that have been donated by the public.  The authors were paid royalties for the sale of those books when they were bought by the people who donated them.  I’m definitely not a right-winger, but this sounds seriously like a subsidy, or even double-dipping.

  12. AgTigress says:

    Museums and art gallerys are only free in England because of the campaigning of the Art Fund http://www.artfund.org/ which raises money to buy works of art that are about to be sold abroad for the nation.

    Would that it were so simple!  The Art Fund, or, as I still think of it, the NACF, is an admirable private organisation that has assisted galleries (mainly art galleries rather than museums) since 1911, but it is far from being the only one involved in any of these matters.  It is one of several grant-giving bodies to which institutions may turn for help, though they will not always be successful.  For example, the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund, and the V&A’s grant fund are three of the others.  It is also one of the many constituencies that have been implacably opposed to museum charges over the last 40 years, often in the teeth of government policy.

    The system regarding works of art and other cultural and heritage property that have been sold to overseas buyers involves, first of all, the Export Licensing Unit of the DCMS, a network of expert advisors, scholars in a wide range of disciplines, and the Reviewing Committee, first set up following the Waverley Report of 1952, which meets monthly, considers cases, and passes its recommendations to the govt. Minister at the DCMS.  Items that are export-stopped on the advice of that committee can only have a temporary bar placed on the transaction:  they will still be exported in due course if no UK institution is able to raise the matching funds to buy them, for which recourse to grant-giving bodies is usually required – and it may be refused:  we do not have a right of pre-emption like that which exists in France.

    Public arts funding is far too low in the UK, and as I mentioned above, the DCMS does not have the clout of some other government departments, try as it might.  We struggle on.

    This is slightly off the library topic, but I know a great deal about the museum side, having spent my whole career as a senior curator in a national museum, and I wanted to make it clear that it is not as simple a matter as has been suggested above.

  13. Elizabeth says:

    AgTigress my apologies if I made it sound too simple, that was not my intention (I am also involved in the arts world although at nothing like the level you are and am aware of the rigmorale that is funding applications)

    I mentioned the Art Fund as it is the organisation I know best and also one that the public can join without becoming a friend of a specific institute.
    All I wanted to point out was that our free entrance to such institutions is not as straight forward as was suggested.
    I also used the Art Fund link as much of the information you have provided is included in their website and if people were interested it is a useful place to get more information.

    I agree with you the lack of funding is atrocious and I also believe centred way to much on London and not on regional museums and projects a situation that only appears to be getting worse.

  14. AgTigress says:

    Elizabeth, we are clearly on the same side! 

    There will probably never be enough money available for all the worthwhile things that need doing, and much of what goes on is a constant tug-of-war between different bodies.  I actually think that the regional element in the museum/gallery world is getting much better:  things are far, far less focused on London than they were, say, 25 years ago, let alone 40 years, but like everything else, change is not only gradual, but also tends to follow a rather jerky pattern, not a smooth curve. 

    We still have a very long way to go, and frankly, the only way of making real progress is higher income-tax on high earners.  To whoever mentioned above that Americans are ‘allergic to taxation’:  well, yes.  So are we all.  I have never heard anyone say, ‘oooh, I paid a huge amount of cash to the Revenue this month – what jolly fun!’  We are ALL ‘allergic to taxes’.  But we also know what is right.  There is a basic principle which, whether you call it ‘socialism’ or just ‘responsible, decent behaviour’, requires that those who are doing well should help to reach out to those who are disadvantaged.  We should pay according to our means, and benefit according to our needs.

  15. joanne says:

    I think there’s another disconnect here as far as what Americans and Europeans perceive as the purpose of a public library.  In the USA, it is considered to be a service to benefit the public.  Period.  That is it’s only purpose.  It is not to enrich or subsidize authors.  The library buys the books.  The authors receive royalties for the books that the library buys.  How is that a ripoff for the author?  How many millions of books do libraries buy and pay for that the public would not have bought themselves? 

    But you aren’t horrified by books being unavailable to poor people because of a system that doesn’t support equal access? You aren’t horrified by US authors deciding not to have their books available in libraries because of the money they would lose? You aren’t horrified by anything that chips away at the feasibility of an already unreliable career option that nevertheless brings so much benefit to many? I don’t see why it should be horrifying for someone to be paid for their work. Or do you think that authors should write for free out of the good of their hearts?

    Holy crap!  What makes you think that free public libraries in the USA are any less accessible to the poor than they are anywhere else in the world.  Free public libraries are just that – free.  For everybody. 

    Do American authors choose not to have their books in libraries?  I’ve never heard of this is it common?

    I would think that the author is paid for their work when they sell a book to the library.  Just like they get paid for their work if anyone else buys it.  Nobody is saying authors don’t deserve to get paid, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out how you came to that conclusion.  Who here said that authors should work for free?

    Why should the public subsidize “an already unreliable career option that nevertheless brings so much benefit to many”?  The same description could apply to street musicians, hot dog vendors, or riding instructors.  Should they also be subsidized?  No one forces anyone to become an author.  It’s a tough way to make a living.  However, when you make the choice to earn your living this way, or in any other fiscally unreliable manner, who should bear the responsibility for that choice?  You or the public?

    I think a lot of this boils down to the concepts of capitalism and self-reliance that are deeply ingrained in the American psyche.  For better or for worse, many of us feel that once we buy a product, even a book, it is ours to use as we will.  Capitalism.  The author has already been paid when the book was purchased.  LIbraries do not make money on those books.  They are not charging the public for their use.  They are not charging admission to look at them.  If an author should be paid whenever a book is borrowed, shouldn’t that author be expected to pay a shelving fee in order for the book to be available to the public for borrowing (or rental in this case)?

    Self-reliance.  You choose your profession.  You support yourself in that profession.  If you cannot support yourself in your chosen profession, you find some other way to supplement your income or choose another profession.  We don’t expect the general public to subsidize us (unless we’re farmers) because we’ve chosen a low-paying profession, no matter how happy it makes people.  I guess that sounds cold, but that’s how it works here.

    My word is below62.  Right now, it’s way below 62!  It’s 24 degree Fahrenheit.  I wish it was above 62.

  16. PLR just is, and it works. We have more authors writing more books because of it, so in that way it enriches our culture. It’s not just for romance books, it’s for poets, historians, anyone whose book is stocked in a library.
    Maybe we think that not everything has to have a profit at the end of the day. That sometimes you can have art for art’s sake, and every time you nurture a talent, you’re not expecting cold, hard cash at the end of the transaction. Pursuing happiness, maybe.

  17. Jocelyn says:

    Well, I clicked on the comments to say everything RobinB just said.  So, I guess my work here is done (thanks for saving me some typing, Robin!).

    I do want to say that I think the PLR payment, while awesome for authors and their finances (which is a big hooray across the board), is an example of conflating the underlying intellectual property with a copy of the intellectual property (which I think is very bad for our legal system). 

    For instance, if I buy a copy of a book, I own the copy.  If I drop it in the bath, I don’t get to go to the bookstore and demand a prestine copy.  If I decide to sell it to the used book store or lend it to a friend, the author and publisher don’t get any more money for that second sale or reading.  I own a copy of the book, I can do what I want with that copy, I don’t own the underlying book.  (This is what Robin was talking about with the first sale doctrine).  If I get an electronic copy of a book or some music, usually I’m not buying a copy, I’m licensing the right to access the book or music and/or save a copy on my hardrive.  That’s different, legally, than buying a copy because once I burn through my access rights granted by the license, my rights are done.  I don’t really “own” anything.

    I’ve noticed in other copyright discussions online (especially those revolving around the DMCA) people dislike the idea that when they get an e-book or download a song from i-tunes, they don’t “own” the materials.  In fact, some seem to think that paying for the materials once should give them a right to permenant access to the intellectual property no matter what electronic format it’s on.  That’s an idea I dislike greatly, because it leaves the author without rights to their content, but e-retailers aren’t going out of their way to explain what you’re paying for when you “buy” (licence!) an e-copy of a book or some music.  Which makes the arguments understandable, I suppose.

    In a way, the PLR seems like the flip-side of that argument.  Rather than getting royalties from the first sale of a copy of the book, the library is giving money to the author (and publisher?  I’m not clear on that) for every time it’s checked out, which seems more like licensing the content, legally.  Which, to my mind, is a problem because it’s imposing an access cost on a copy of a work that has a built-in lifespan anyway.  As Nora Roberts pointed out, if the book is read enough, the library will have to buy more copies anyway.  The author’s payment is factored in to this model.  I wouldn’t argue with charging more for the book or giving authors a bigger cut of the profits, but chaging what’s being paid for, and then only imposing that access cost on libraries seems like a bad idea for the USA’s legal system and copyright system in general. 

    Though, really, the point may be moot in time, anyway.  Many libraries are moving more and more towards e-books, and the payment system for them (as I understand it) is very similar to PLR payments.  As we move away from print, the move from buying copies to licensing access may solve this problem for us.

  18. Suzi says:

    Just to add to my fellow Aussie Brownyn Parry’s information on why authors here benefit from library sales, many outback towns only get to see works from new authors when the mobile library visits once or twice a month by bus or truck. Then, when they make a trip into their nearest big town, they often save all their money to buy great piles of other books from those authors to take home with them. More sales. Plus, local libraries have a forward ordering system for all “To be released’ titles for the coming months where you check lists online,  pay a holding fee, then go on a waiting list for that book. That way each library knows in advance whether they need to buy 50 or 100 copies of that book to meet demand. Once again, more sales for authors.
    By increasing interest in new authors, and new books by popular authors, everyone wins,
    Sue

  19. I think there’s a subtlety in this that has perhaps been missed, in part due to the different cultural perspectives and experiences.

    The PLR, although in some cases expressed as a royalty, is not a move towards trying to get libraries, or library users, to pay royalties. It is an acknowledgment by governments of the importance of local cultural production.

    Bear in mind that in countries like Australia, Australian-authored books might only constitute 5-10% of a library’s holdings. So, PLR only applies to a small proportion of books available for borrowing. I’m guessing there might be similar figures in many European countries for locally-authored books, especially with regard to fiction, which tends to be translated from English rather than acquired locally. Maybe in the UK and Canada the figures are higher, but I’m pretty sure there’s still a strong US portion.

    To be frank, I don’t see PLR as being particularly appropriate in the US context. The sheer size of the market, and the cultural dominance of US authors in their home market and abroad, means that authors have a lot more opportunity to be rewarded for their creative work than authors in smaller countries have.

    PLR, in Australia at least, is not just about the physical product of ‘the book’. It’s about our context, and the limitations of our small market, and importantly about our culture and the importance of nurturing authors (and publishers) who can explore that in creative ways, building our identity and sense of self as Australians.

  20. joanne says:

    Maybe we think that not everything has to have a profit at the end of the day. That sometimes you can have art for art’s sake, and every time you nurture a talent, you’re not expecting cold, hard cash at the end of the transaction. Pursuing happiness, maybe.

    How so, when the author is demanding payment so that others may have the privilege of just looking at it?  It seems to me that, in this case, the author is much more mercenary since he or she is being paid both for the sale of the book and then repeatedly afterward just for the book having been read.  Having the cake (selling the book) and eating it too (being paid additional royalties whenever the book is checked out).  The sculptor of a statue in the public square does not get paid each time his art is admired, even if people come by the busload to view it.  He was paid for his creation when he sold it.  Same thing for the artist who paints the government bigwig’s portrait that hangs in city hall.  He has been paid.  The product that he sold to the public now is public property, and anyone in town can look at it.  He will be recompensed no further. 

    I would think that pursuing happiness would be more apt when one could enjoy a book that was purchased with tax dollars, knowing that one will not be taxed again just for borrowing it.

  21. amy lane says:

    Wow—per usual, I’m late to a really complicated discussion…

    I think being paid a little revenue per viewing of my books would be awesome… and I think any system that supports its artists in such a way should be lauded to the heavens, no matter what the drawback.

    Could we make it work? 

    Of course we could.  We could also make socialized medicine and alternative energy resources work—but, as many people have state, “priorities”.  Many of our loudest voices don’t see the world this way.  Of course, many of our loudest voices don’t see education as a priority, unless it’s to make grand, sweeping, ignorant statements about schools and teachers and then hand down unlivable edicts that assume every kid is built the exact same way and every student should WANT to go to college.  (This isn’t true.  The fact is, we disrespect honest work and tradesmen as much as we disrespect artists, and every time we tell a kid who’s good with his hands that “it’s not good enough to get him into college” we make sure that the one kid who’s self confident enough to walk his own line has us over a frickin’ barrel when he’s fixing our car, remodeling our house, or crafting our furniture.)  The fact is, the United States educational/economic model is designed EXACTLY to the specifications of the gentleman who bought his books instead of going to the library—the general feeling being that if we want to read that much, we’ll buy our own.  (Just like ‘if we want to succeed that much, we’ll get into college, even if there’s nothing there we want to do’.) 

    The fun part of this model is that it limits EVERYBODY.  As a teacher I break copyright laws frequently, in order to get more materials (and more up-to-date) materials to my students.  As a writer, I assume people loan my books to friends and even hope they do, because even if I’m not getting paid, at least I’m getting read.  As a taxpayer, I think that if the schools and libraries were run better, these wouldn’t be choices I’m forced to make. 

    It’s self-centered and blind.  It’s very US.

    It is a lovely concept though.  Ah, priorities.

  22. Nialla says:

    As a librarian in a small rural town, I can say this would be a dream for authors, but a nightmare otherwise.

    Libraries are not nationalized here. They are a patchwork quilt of entities that range from fully voluteer non-accredited ones (usually because they aren’t open enough hours, spend enough per capita or otherwise do not qualify) to massive systems with multitudes of branches.

    My library receives funds mostly from our City, with microscopic percentages coming from our County and State (via State Library funding). The City covers about 98% of our funding, yet allows free library service to anyone.

    If a federal program like this was instituted, libraries who are administered in a myriad of ways would have to have to come up with a system to track this data. The idea of the federal government getting their foot in my library’s door gives me a case of the screaming heebie jeebies. I already get twitchy filling out the 20+ pages of our state library’s annual report and the myriad other reports we have to fill out, much less what would be required to do a federal program.

    I don’t think there’s a chance in hell this would get through Congress. Not only the “no more taxes” mantra, but it would take them forever to tack on all their special projects into it. *g*

    Even the tiny amount from our State Library practically requires us to stand on our heads to get it, but since the State Librarian had to do that with our state’s Congress, I figure it balances out. It was once remarked in our regional meeting (and there are over 100 accredited libraries in just our one region) that our state librarian was giving a speech to Congress about the need for more funding, and that our state usually ranked in the last ten out of the 50 states in regards to funding. At which point, one Congressman whispered to another, “Really? What can we do to get down to 50?”

    Feel the love.

  23. Heller says:

    Another Canadian here. A bit of confusion over the PLR as a royality it’s not considered one. Here’s a bit from the Canadian PLR FAQ:

    Are Public Lending Right payments like royalties?

    No. Royalties are payments from a publisher based a percentage of the revenues received for book sales. Public Lending Right payments are provided by the federal government in recognition of the contributions that authors make to Canadian society through the presence of their books in public libraries.

  24. mary says:

    Also, the person who worried about having to pay for library cards.  I hate to tell you this, but every single library I’ve been a ‘member’ of in the U.S. has charged a fee for the card (from $2 here in our little hamlet to $15 in bigger cities and in some locations it wasn’t a one-time charge but a yearly one) whereas all the library cards I ever had in Europe were free.

    GrowlyCub, I read this part of your comment and almost choked. Really?? I’m not doubting you, I’m honestly just surprised at how different my experience has been. I’ve never had to pay anything for a library card, in any U.S. community I’ve lived in—and that’s four library districts in two different states, including one small town, one major city, and two suburbs. I also did a quick, if limited, Google on “library card fees” and found it pretty consistent: library cards seem to be free to residents of a community, and not-free to non-residents. (Though at least two of the library districts I’ve lived in have also had reciprocal borrower agreements with surrounding communities, so that my card was good for most library privileges in those libraries, too. Not all privileges—I seem to remember that some libraries wouldn’t let me borrow movies—but certainly for checking out books.)

    Not that it’s all that relevant to the topic under discussion, I suppose . . .

  25. GrowlyCub says:

    Mary, not only did I have to fork over 2 bucks for the card here, I also had to provide two references with phone numbers and I live in the city limits (even though this is the county library, so not living within the limits shouldn’t make a difference).  But then our library also has a rental shelf, so we might just be really special. 🙂

  26. mary says:

    GrowlyCub, that’s wild. The two references I can understand—I worked in a public library for a while, back in the 1980s, and even then we required proof of residence and a local reference (which we never called; I remember one applicant used our state representative’s name and contact information, on the theory that he’d voted for the man, after all) (yes, we accepted it)—but paying for a library card? That’s just wrong.

    We had rental books too, but they were—as someone above mentioned—a supplemental collection of best sellers, and we sent them back to the agency when shelf space got tight.

  27. rooruu says:

    Another bit of Australian info: you can read the list of the highest scoring books (fiction and nonfiction) from the PLR here
    http://www.arts.gov.au/literature/lending_rights/highest_scoring_books_plr

    And you’ll find that lots are children’s books.

  28. Judy Astley says:

    I’m really astounded at a few of the comments on here… There seems to be a small thread of real hostility to the idea that writers should be paid to be read.  Do those who feel like this also feel the same about the work of musicians?  Actors? Artists?  Maybe it’s to do with the current prevailing free-download culture?  Do you also resent musicians getting PRS/MCPS?  Or artists their resale percentage?

    We writers have enough to deal with, gritting our teeth every time a ‘dedicated’ second-hand book store opens, or when book-swop websites such as Book Crossing gleefully offer our books to be ‘released into the wild’, completely free.  Our PLR is a civilised and fair payment so please don’t grudge it to us.

  29. Faellie says:

    Joanne said “I think a lot of this boils down to the concepts of capitalism and self-reliance that are deeply ingrained in the American psyche.  For better or for worse, many of us feel that once we buy a product, even a book, it is ours to use as we will.”

    I don’t think this quite accords with my understanding of various American companies’ activities regarding end-user rights on e products, including various formats of ebooks.  Capitalist yes, ours to use as we will, no.

  30. Renda says:

    How long does one receive the PLR payments?  Do they last as long as copyrights so that heirs can directly benefit or do the PLR payments die with the author?
    If books are compilations, are all the authors paid equally or are you paid based on how many pages you have contributed?
    Does the editor get some of the royalties?
    Can you download audio books from the libraries and then do those get counted in the numbers?  Does an illustrator get paid for the downloaded books, because their art doesn’t come into play?
    What do you do when the book is reprinted with different cover art?  Who gets the illustrator’s fee then?
    Do the authors get taxed on their PLR pay?
    (These are for the most part rhetorical questions.)

    I personally think it is the USAian’s ability/curse to see so many questions about what “just is” in other countries that contributes to what others see as our brains shutting down on a “foreign” concept.  It is not our lack of thinking, it is our overthinking, rightly or wrongly.

  31. Judy Astley says:

    When you register your books for PLR you are asked about your percentage contribution. With a regular novel, it’s going to be 100%.  Three novels to a compilation volume would give you 33%.  Author and illustrator of, say, children’s books, are both eligible at whatever ratio they’d already agreed.
    Editors don’t get royalties from PLR, just as they don’t get them when books are sold.
    Cover art is, as far as I know, on a buy-out basis and not eligible for royalties.
    PLR is part of a writer’s taxable income.  Sadly, its annual payment more or less coincides with one of the twice-yearly self-employed tax dates so what comes in, tends to go straight out again!
    I don’t know what happens with downloads.  As far as I know, these aren’t yet available via libraries.. but I assume that when they are, PLR will apply in the same way.
    Interesting about whether PLR dies with the author – I don’t know that one, but would like to.  My guess would be that it goes on for as long as copyright does, ie 75 years after death. Anyone know if this is the case?

  32. FD says:

    PLR does continue after death in the same way copyright does – UK authors are supposed to attribute PLR rights in their wills.  Some donate them back to the PLR funds pool, which I think is neat.

  33. AgTigress says:

    This all reminds me of the furiously acrimonious debates over droite de suite in the visual arts (basically, an arrangement whereby an artist himself and his heirs for a limited period after his death receives a small percentage payment when one of his works is sold on from one owner to the next):  the very concept of this law, accepted in many EU countries, infuriated the art-dealer establishment in the UK.  The artist himself should benefit from the resale of his work (often at sums vastly greater than his original sale), and cut into the profit of the dealers?  Outrageous!  Who does he think he is!  He only painted the &*^%$£ thing – what is that compared with buying and selling?  Why, any minute now, someone might suggest that creativity and beauty and spiritual nourishment are as important to human civilisation as moving currency from one location to another, and taking a fat cut of it every time.

  34. mary says:

    Since I haven’t commented on the actual topic of this thread yet . . . ; )

    As a U.S. citizen and library user, I have no objection whatsoever to the concept of PLR—well, provided that the money for it comes out of some source other than individual library budgets. I’ve no idea what a fair, sufficient, and reliable source would be, but (as someone pointed out upthread) if we wanted to do it, we could probably figure out a way. I do think it would be awfully difficult, given the patchwork-quilt of library districts and funding methods even in single states, let alone across the whole nation, and might cost everyone (including authors) more in taxes than people realize, making the whole thing a wash for most authors, but that’s another issue.

    There is, however, something that hasn’t been mentioned yet, that might be figuring into some folk’s apparently automatic hostility to the concept, especially in U.S. librarians with long memories. Leaving aside the paperwork question—who gets to keep the records, and how much work is it going to be?—I can remember when librarians had to stand and fight against government oversight of circulation. This was a particularly rough fight when computerized card catalogs came in, but it wasn’t a new one: various security agencies had occasionally attempted to find out not just of what books were being borrowed, but WHICH PATRONS were borrowing certain books, even in the hand-stamp check-out days. It required a subpoena, and librarians fought it tooth and nail as being inimical to the very concept of free public libraries.

    When computer came in, it got worse, because the data could be collected so much more easily (and anonymously). The library system I worked in did its absolute best to make sure that the computer-check-out system didn’t preserve that information. Period. The program was written to erase as soon as the book was returned (which made keeping track of which books needed to be culled difficult, too—or at least, I seem to remember some discussion of that potential problem). I suspect that the librarians were kidding themselves about protecting their patrons’ privacy, even then, but it mattered to them . . . so the idea of keeping track even of which books were being checked out might be contributing to an instinctively negative reaction to PLR, though (of course) it isn’t necessarily relevant.

    FWIW.

  35. robinb says:

    Jocelyn said

    In a way, the PLR seems like the flip-side of that argument.  Rather than getting royalties from the first sale of a copy of the book, the library is giving money to the author (and publisher?  I’m not clear on that) for every time it’s checked out, which seems more like licensing the content, legally.  Which, to my mind, is a problem because it’s imposing an access cost on a copy of a work that has a built-in lifespan anyway.  As Nora Roberts pointed out, if the book is read enough, the library will have to buy more copies anyway.  The author’s payment is factored in to this model.  I wouldn’t argue with charging more for the book or giving authors a bigger cut of the profits, but chaging what’s being paid for, and then only imposing that access cost on libraries seems like a bad idea for the USA’s legal system and copyright system in general.

    THANK you, Jocelyn!  This is what I was trying to say.  And, ultimately, this is an argument that has little point.  UK authors: good on you.  I’m glad you get this an that it works.  US libraries: good on us.  I’m glad that we don’t have this here because it would lead to something, I believe, that might be more damaging to libraries, especially public libraries.  And I can’t imagine public libraries sitting by while their academic counterparts are not required to contribute their circ figures to a scheme like this.  It was difficult enough to get the first sale doctrine codified (which is largely the basis for libraries to be able to operate as they do) and this is a step in the opposite direction.  We are moving more towards licensing content instead with e-materials, as Jocelyn said, so I would hate to see us apply that model to the things we have already bought and paid for. 

    In other ugly American news, Quincy Jones has a petition for President Elect Obama to name a “Secretary of the Arts” cabinet level position. 
    More talk of such a thing here:

  36. joanne says:

    I don’t think this quite accords with my understanding of various American companies’ activities regarding end-user rights on e products, including various formats of ebooks.  Capitalist yes, ours to use as we will, no.

    In this case, we are not discussing ebooks.  We are discussing printed books sitting on the shelf at the public library, so I don’t see how that effects this situation.

  37. Trix says:

    Regarding the argument that you should use what you paid for as you see fit, that’s fine. Go and buy the book. However, if a public institution owns a book and lends it to said public, that’s a wee chunk of revenue that an author may never see. It’s only in the last decade that I’ve been able to afford books semi-regularly – I’m glad that my library patronage (which has been heavy) has still generated some income for the authors, in each of the three countries in which I’ve lived.

    I absolutely agree that the provision of libraries is a public good. But people who provide the materials that public institutions use get compensated. The medical suppliers of the free hospitals here still get paid for the materials they provide. Sure, the author gets compensated once – but there will have been more of their books purchased if they weren’t available in libraries (Ms Roberts is making a lot of money off me at the moment, due to the uselessness of the Canberra library system, combined with the evil of Borders). So the PLR is just to even the scales a small amount – although I agree that a large benefit is also the advertising that having one’s books in the library provides. But unless you have zillions of books in print, I don’t think advertising is sufficient compensation. PLR certainly benefits those whose books are OOP!

    I don’t know of anyone who thinks of the PLR scheme as some kind of bizarre licensing model. Libraries continue to sell off their old books to the public, and I sure don’t pay any PLR when I get a second-hand library book home and stick it on my own shelves. There has been no impact on second-hand book stores in the UK (or anywhere else with this scheme) – the UK is great for second-hand books. It is not the thin edge with regard to licensing – although given the confusion it seems to have caused here, perhaps any such scheme in the US would require explicit language saying that the author/publisher are not licensing the work. It is merely a (central) government contribution to the authors, based on the volume of books borrowed.

    It’s not a nightmare to administer – the population of Western Europe, the UK and the antipodes is some multiples of the US population. The libraries gather the stats (and all libraries gather stats these days!) and forward them to the central agency that doles out the cheques to the registered authors. Simple. It’s like a grant to any kind of artist.

  38. Darcie says:

    This has been such an awesome discussion about libraries!  Thanks to everyone who has participated!  For those of us in the US – there are many industries that give royalties and they don’t affect our taxes – music as it has been mentioned – actors get royalties for their movies and DVD sales.  Why not authors? 

    Are we thinking too inside the box about libraries?  Take the radio for instance – they pay royalties AND offer a free service.  We aren’t offended that artists are paid royalties from radios and it doesn’t come from taxes.  Can libraries be privatized and still be free?  Would we be offended to have advertising at libraries that would allow them to be free and provide authors a royalty?

    Also – the book industry is on the cusp of big change – look at e-readers and the popularity of Kindle.  Being able to trade books or getting used books may be dwindling fast.  I can now download books from the library from home – I would guess at some point we might be able to do this for electronic book copies.  Is the future of libraries more virtual than brick and mortar?

    I LOVE to read and I think anything that keeps people writing (and able to afford writing as a career) is great!

  39. robinb says:

    If anyone is interested, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions has a position paper on this subject.  Find it here.

  40. joanne says:

    While radio is free for the listeners, it is definitely not free.  It is paid for by advertisers.  Royalties are paid for by radio stations that play it because they are commercial enterprises that make money off of the fact that they are playing said music.  Music radio stations would have no listeners, ergo they would not be able to make a profit from the advertising revenue they collect, if they did not play the music that they’re paying royalties on.  Royalties are paid for music on the radio and movies on tv because the stations broadcasting it are making a profit off of the movies and music.  Public libraries also loan videos, DVD’s, CD’s, and record albums (yes, the vinyl kind).  They don’t pay royalties for those in the USA, either.  They were either donated or bought and paid for by the libraries.  The artist has been paid – when the books, DVD, or CD was originally bought.  Nothing free about it.

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