Consultation outcome

Government Response to a Consultation on the proposal to extend the Public Lending Right to include remote e-lending from public libraries in Northern Ireland.

Updated 10 June 2021

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

1. Government Response to a Consultation on the proposal to extend the Public Lending Right to include remote e-lending from public libraries in Northern Ireland.

2. Introduction

The consultation ran from 8 April to 28 April 2021. The consultation was sent to 17 representative organisations of authors, public library services and other key stakeholders in the public library sector in the UK, as well as the Devolved Administrations. The consultation was also published on GOV.UK.

3. Background

The Public Lending Right Act 1979 (“the PLR Act 1979”) provides a right, known as the Public Lending Right” (PLR), for authors and other eligible rights holders to receive payments from a central fund for the loan of their books to the public by local library authorities in the United Kingdom. The titles and materials eligible for registration for PLR, and the rates of payments to be made in respect of it, are determined in accordance with secondary legislation, the PLR Scheme. The Secretary of State has a power to vary the Scheme and to bring such variations into force by Order.

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (“the 1988 Act”) provides that any eligible works lent under the PLR Scheme are lent without infringing copyright under the 1988 Act. The PLR Scheme enables financial compensation for authors and other contributors by making payments to them from the central PLR fund on the basis of how often their titles registered under the Scheme are borrowed from public libraries.

The PLR Scheme has been managed by the British Library Board since 1 October 2013, funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. PLR payments are made annually by the British Library to eligible authors who register their books with the British Library’s PLR Office.

The PLR Scheme originally applied to the lending of physical books from public libraries in the UK. The Digital Economy Act 2010 extended the PLR to include the lending of audiobooks and the lending of e-books where they were downloaded on library premises. These provisions came into force in July 2014 and payments were made to rights holders from February 2016.

However, the lending of e-books and digital audiobooks (e-audiobooks) by public libraries in the UK is generally carried out ‘remotely’ by online download from a public library service’s system directly to a library user’s device for the loan period, without the need to visit library premises. This meant that, despite the provisions in the Digital Economy Act 2010, the remote lending of e-books and e-audiobooks was not covered by the PLR Scheme at that time.

To address this, section 31 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 made an amendment to the PLR to include the remote lending of e-books and e-audiobooks. Section 31 was brought into force in England, Scotland and Wales in 2018, and, following consultation, a consequential variation was made to the PLR Scheme in 2018 to cover remote e-lending in England, Scotland and Wales.

Section 31 was not brought into force in Northern Ireland at that time as there was no sitting Northern Ireland Executive, but there was a commitment to bring section 31 into force in relation to Northern Ireland at a subsequent opportunity when the Northern Ireland Executive was restored.

The UK government has engaged closely with the Northern Ireland Executive throughout this process.

4. The consultation

DCMS ran a three week public consultation on the proposal to extend the PLR to include remote e-lending by public libraries in Northern Ireland. We received 13 responses, including from sector organisations representing authors, libraries, publishers and booksellers. The government would like to thank those who responded to the consultation.

The consultation sought views on a proposal for an amendment to be made to the PLR Scheme:

Question 1: Do you agree with the proposal to amend the PLR Scheme to reflect the extension of PLR to include remote e-lending by public libraries in Northern Ireland?

All responses were supportive of the proposed change. Comments included that the extension of the Public Lending Right to include remote e-lending by libraries in Northern Ireland will provide a consistency of approach across the UK and is important particularly in light of the significant increases in electronic borrowing during the COVID pandemic.

Government Response Having considered the consultation responses, the Minister has varied the Scheme for Northern Ireland to reflect the changes made to the Public Lending Right Act 1979 by the commencement of provisions in section 31 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 (which extend the Public Lending Right to include remote lending of e-books and e-audiobooks). The statutory instrument varying the Scheme was laid on 10 June 2021 and comes into force on 1 July 2021.

Five respondents took the opportunity to raise other more general points about PLR and public libraries. The points raised were: to increase the PLR central fund, to upgrade the British Library PLR computer system, changes in the operation of the PLR Scheme, and to extend the PLR Scheme to include volunteer libraries. While these matters fall outside the scope of this consultation, DCMS welcomes the open dialogue with authors, their representatives, and the public libraries sector on the PLR. We work closely with the British Library to monitor the status and delivery of PLR and will consult the sector on any future changes as appropriate.

5. Next Steps

Having considered the consultation responses, the Minister has laid before Parliament the Public Lending Right Scheme 1982 (Commencement of Variations) (Northern Ireland) Order 2021, which will vary the PLR Scheme by commencing section 31 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 in Northern Ireland, Commencement regulations have also been made to commence section 31 of the Digital Economy Act 2017 in relation to Northern Ireland. These commencement regulations are not subject to parliamentary procedure. These Order’s will come into force in time for the beginning of a new PLR year, which runs from 1 July to 30 June. This amendment will ensure that there is a consistency of approach across the whole of the United Kingdom.