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In addition to the payment of Business licence fees this March, PLS will also be paying £60k to UK publishers from Stichting Leenrecht based in the Netherlands. This represents a new revenue stream for UK publishers from the Netherlands, and which will be paid regularly via PLS from now on.
The payment comes from the Dutch equivalent of the UK Public Lending Right scheme which remunerates authors for the lending of their works through public libraries. In the UK, PLR pays fees only to writers, illustrators, photographers, translators and editors. The Dutch scheme differs in that publishers are included in the list of rightsowners that are entitled to a portion of fees.
In practice, the Dutch experience is that almost all rights owner groups have established their own collective organisations to deal with collective copyright matters such as reprography. Stichting Leenrecht is the central body which collects lending fees, and distributes them to these representative organisations for on-payment to individuals and organisations. The distribution to foreign rights owners is no different, and will be done on the basis of reciprocal or unilateral contracts with sister organisations abroad, ie via PLS, and ALCS on behalf of authors.
The £60k being distributed this month represents two payments, one covering the period 2003 – 2008, the other for lendings throughout 2008. More information about PLR in the Netherlands can be found by clicking here.
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