Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The PLR is a form of compensation for authors for the fact that people can borrow their books from the library, rather than having to buy a copy themselves. It was introduced, in the UK, when changes to copyright law removed an author's right to refuse to have their book in the library system.
It's not a vast sum of money; an author receives about 6p (about US 10c) per loan, with a maximum payment to any one author of about £3000 in any given year (about $5000).
PLR payments go directly to the author; it's not paid to the publisher of the book.
I believe that most people would regard the PLR as a good thing. It exists in most western nations.
|
In the US, the compensation authors get is that we will have a copyright system at all. No more books in libraries paid for once for the public good would equal zero need to burden government with copyright enforcement.
That is our social contract.