As the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) held the 44th session of its Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR) in November 2023, EWC Secretary General Nicole pfister Fetz submitted on behalf of the European Writers’ Council the following statement on the pending “Proposal for a Study Focused on Public Lending Right in the Agenda and Future Work of the SCCR of the WIPO.

“The European Writers’ Council is grateful to WIPO as well as Member States onto the decision to conduct this important study on how a remunerated Public Lending Right protects and promotes the cultural, educational and social values writers provide to societies and individuals.

PLR implements the principle that ‘every use must be remunerated’ which is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We hope, that the PLR-Study sustainably supports the mission of libraries as a third place, an anaogue and real space of encounter and social interaction, and a precious access to knowledge and literature. Remunerated PLR for print books is the way forward, to foster reading, literacy, human encounters as well as critical thinking. PLR is the commitment to fairness, and we look forward to many success stories within the study, which will be manifold.

The EWC hopes for a wide-ranging report as a “handout” including but not limited to regional seminars, workshops – or the offer to analyse, which of the currently four legal combinations on how to install PLR in a specific and interested country, to support member states that want to secure the state’s educational mandate, and act in the interest of authors, of society, innovation, and preservation of future knowledge and innovation.

The study should not lead to a legal instrument of any form.

It should focus on PLR for printed works and on public libraries.”

Photo: Emmanuel Berrod. Copyright: WIPO. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License