Funferal

Copyright fees and libraries

Sometimes press releases draw attention to the darnest things…
Hands up everyone who knew that an EU Directive requires that libraries pay fees to copyright holders based on materials borrowed? I’d been unaware of the requirement, though it is consistent with the European approach to copyright.
The only reason the matter came to my attention was because the Irish government may have seriously messed up implementation of the directive. EU law is implemented in Ireland by being transposed into local law. Under the directive the local law can exempt certain libraries from fees – one can imagine that public municipal libraries might be declared exempt for example. However, the Irish government, in the 2000 Copyright Act, declared all Irish libraries exempt, something which is not allowed, and which might lead to all Irish libraries being declared liable for 10 years of back fees.
The interesting thing is that Irish law provides tax relief on all income earned from creative endeavour, so most of those reaping the benefit of the library fees will presumably not have to pay tax on that income. Of course, this situation already exists, to some extent, with radio copyright fees. Are there grounds for re-envisaging the exemption on artist income?