Collecting societies

Collecting societies

Collecting societies pertinent to our field (literary translation) are those, which collect remunerations from reprography, private copying (PCL), secondary use and public lending rights (PLR). Which collecting society covers which field varies from country to country. In some countries collecting societies are specialized just for one category of authors and performers (example Slovenia, 6 collecting societies: music authors, writers, reprography, music producers and performers, film producers and actors, PCL), they cover larger array of intellectual and artistic activities (Slovak Lita) or in any other combination. On global scale collecting societies are represented by CISAC – the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers with than 200 members in 120 countries. https://www.cisac.org Collecting societies are by law obliged to direct collected levies of unknown authors to special funds. The rules and conditions of using these funds vary from society to society. Some funds offer grants (Finland, Norway), others direct support (Czech, Spain, Basque, Austria, Denmark).

PLR (Public Lending Right)

Public Lending Right (PLR) is the right of authors and other rights-holders to receive payment for the free public use of their works in libraries. The first country to establish a PLR system was Denmark in 1946, followed by Norway in 1947 and Sweden in 1954. Under the 1992 Directive on Rental and Lending Right EU member states are required by law to provide authors with an exclusive right to lend out their works or at least provide them with remuneration for the lending out of their works. For more information, see PLR International website.