E-Lending in Public Libraries harms the print and electronic market and lowers authors’ income significantly – a scientific study in Germany shows
Brussels, 18th January 2025
For several years, there has been a fierce debate in numerous European countries about whether the current Public Lending Rights (PLR) regulations should be extended to include the digital lending of e-books (e-lending) in public libraries. Authors and publishers warned against changing the practice, which has so far been based on voluntary licensing agreements, arguing that the negative impact on the sales market and, consequently, on authors’ royalties would be too severe. Instead, licence fees should be increased substantially to compensate for the already existing losses.
The scientific study from Germany
The European Writers‘ Council (EWC) welcomes therefore the initiative by the German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media Claudia Roth, to have a scientific study conducted „ The economic impact of e-lending in public libraries on the consumer book market “. The study by DIW Econ confirms the facts, that sales in the print and electronic markets are falling significantly the more e-books are borrowed from libraries. Also, the current licence fees for electronic lending hardly compensate for the huge losses. The cost-free e-book lending option is used most frequently by educated and wealthy people, who, at the same time, spend less money on books buying after starting to lend out for free.
A legal extension of the PLR exception to PLR for digital lending would result in losses of up to €170 million for the German book sector alone. Currently, around €9 million is distributed to authors and publishers from printed books within the framework of PLR, and around €16 million is received from e-lending licences.
These figures clearly show that German-language authors and publishers are already subsidising the state’s educational mandate, and that the free lending for library users and the by no means adequate remuneration are at the detriment of the writers”, says Miguel Ángel Serrano, President of the EWC. “This is comparable to other member states where books in analogue and digital form are lent at the lowest flat-rate royalties for authors. Governments should invest in the future of democracy and diversity, and significantly increase library acquisition and lending budgets as well.”
This demand can also be found in the ten-point recommendation paper that followed the study and has now been published by members of the round table at the German government Commissioner for Culture and the Media in English.
Recommendations
Especially we like to highlight three (out of the ten) recommendations:
- an improvement of the remuneration of authors;
- the development of voluntary, sustainable and transparent licensing models;
- no further exception for e-lending in the Copyright Act.
The ten final recommendations as well as the study on the economic impact of E-Lending in public libraries on the consumer book market are resulting from two years of intensive and constructive exchange and dialogue between representatives of authors’, publishers’, booksellers’, libraries’ and librarians’ associations at the Round Table hosted by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM), together with the Ministry of Justice, and the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate. Nina George, EWC President of Honor and Commissioner for Political Affairs participated as authors’ representative in the discussions.
The EWC endorses the study, to provide more clarity about the influencing factors and on remuneration by e-lending in Public Libraries, highlighting the precarious situation of authors and their economic losses when their books are lent electronically.
Learn more about
- the press release by 15 authors’ associations from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland;
- the ten recommendations by the Round Table on E-Lending in Public Libraires;
- the scientific and independent study „The economic impact of E-Lending in public libraries on the consumer book market
E-Lending in Europe
The results and recommendations from Germany emphasise the need for more transparency in all European countries regarding the conditions for E-Lending, and the need for appropriate conditions for authors.
The EWC regards the development in Germany with its moderated stakeholder dialogue, a study and ten recommendations, as a valuable first step to improve general conditions on E-lending in public libraries. We hope that other European countries will follow the German role model.
Monika Pfundmeier, EWC Board member head of EWC‘ E-lending Task Force and German writer, points out:
Intransparency on authors‘ income coming from public lending enable exploitation. The recent developments shed finally some light onto the current situation and possible improvements for E-lending in Germany. This is encouraging to gather further data on E-lending offered by public libraries and its financial impact on authors and publishers also from other countries all over Europe. Thanks to more transparency and insightful knowledge we can initiate a dialogue in order to finally get appropriate and adequate remuneration for authors. This has to be the goal for society interested in long term growth and stability.”