Countries in blue have PLR schemes. Image PLRI website
By Erin L. Cox, Publisher | @erinlcox
This morning, it was announced that Public Lending Right International (PLRI) was established as an international association to bring together lending rights stakeholders from across the globe to foster the exchange of best practices as well as provide support to countries to create or improve existing Public Lending Right (PLR) systems. PLRI had been operating as an informal global network since 1995.
Arjen Polman, CEO of Stichting Leenrecht in the Netherlands, was elected by the Boards of Directors to be PLR’s President.
“Formally establishing PLRI after 30 years of public lending right supporting text authors, visual authors, translators and publishers is a great step forward. We now invite all organizations that manage or distribute public lending rights to become members of PLRI as well as authors’ and other rightsholders’ organizations as they are also eligible.”
The Public Lending Right (PLR) is the right of authors and other rightsholders to receive a fair payment for public lending by and in public libraries. The inclusion of authors’ works in public libraries forms the bedrock of the free exchange of ideas and the payment for the inclusion of that work is essential to support the creative and publishing sector.
Thirty-three countries have PLR systems, but with varied terms and recognition of stakeholders. The formation of PLRI may help to expand the creation of PLR systems as well as make uniform these terms for authors, illustrators, and publishers around the world. These systems are generally funded by the central or regional government, not libraries themselves.
The founding organizations of PLRI are EVA (European Visual Artists), EWC (European Writers’ Council), FEP (Federation of European Publishers), IPA (International Publishers Association) and three collective management organizations active in the collection and distribution of public lending rights: Reprobel (Belgium), La Sofia (France) and Stichting Leenrecht (The Netherlands).
The new association, now jointly established by the international book sector’s federations formally under Swiss law with its headquarters in Geneva, will organize a PLR International Conference in 2026.