To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what assessment his Department has made of the changes to (a) EU and (b) UK copyright law that would be necessary to enable the Public Lending Right to include remote e-loans.
Answered on
24 March 2015
Any extension of the PLR scheme to include remotely downloaded e-books would be incompatible with the Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC). In order for such an extension to be possible, it would first be necessary for an exception to be made to the Communication to the Public Right, as set out in the Directive, and which would be applicable to remote e-lending. Such an extension would subsequently require an amendment to primary legislation. Government continues to monitor discussions on the Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC).