The German state minister for culture, Claudia Roth, seen here speaking in 2022 at Frankfurter Buchmesse, calls the result of Berlin’s E-Lending Round Table ‘success in this area of tension.’ Image: Frankfurter Buchmesse, Zino Peterek
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Roth: ‘Licensing Models Will Now Be Developed’
On Wednesday (October 30), participants in Germany’s “E-Lending Round Table”—representatives of authors, translators, publishers, book retailers, libraries, and librarians—presented joint recommendations on lending ebooks in public libraries.
The recommendations are intended to improve access to digital media in libraries and contribute to appropriate remuneration for authors’ and publishers’ services. By agreeing on joint recommendations among all those involved, the federal government is implementing a plan from the coalition agreement.
Germany is hardly alone in finding questions of ebook lending in libraries challenging. Questions of fair licensing and fears of sales being cannibalized by library availability have been encountered in many markets.
Minister of state for culture Claudia Roth says, “I expressly welcome the constructive process and the recommendations of the round table.
“Together we have managed to bring movement into a debate that has been deadlocked for years.
“The result is a success in this area of tension. The recommendations are an important step toward achieving fair conditions and improvements in e-lending in public libraries.
“My expectation is that licensing models will now be developed and tested on this basis as part of pilot projects. I would like to thank those involved for their trust, their willingness to engage in dialogue, and their commitment.”
The participants in the round table have reportedly have dealt intensively with the challenges and opportunities of e-lending and discussed possible solutions. The basis was a study on e-lending that the federal government commissioner for culture and media (BKM) had commissioned on the recommendation of the round table. A broad-based survey by the federal ministry of justice (BMJ) was also taken into account.
A sticking point for many years has been that ebooks are usually not offered to libraries for licensing on the date of publication, but with a significant delay (so-called windowing).
The round table proposes the development and testing of negotiation-based licensing models as a solution, with which publishers could be willing to provide e-books to libraries earlier than before. If ebooks are made available earlier than before, it’s recommended that this be taken into account financially in the licensing negotiations.
Roth invited participants to the E-Lending Round Table for the first time in autumn 2022.
Participants in the E-Lending Round Table were the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Germany’s publishers and booksellers association; a publishing representative; the German Library Association; the Association of German Librarians; the Authors’ Rights Network; the Association of German Writers (VS in Ver.di),
The Association of German-language Translators of Literary and Scientific Works, as well as the federal ministry of justice; and the federal ministry for economic affairs and climate protection.
Full recommendations of the E-Lending Round Table can be found here, in German.
More on the German book industry and market is here, more on ebooks is here, and more on digital publishing is here.