The Public Lending Right - progress of sorts
If you want to start at the beginning, click here for the original story.
I’m not sure how many people took up my offer of emailing the Minister, I know a few did, and I understand they received the same reply that I did.
When the minister replied, I got quite excited, as you do, when you think you’ve changed the world (at least a tiny part of the world).
I clicked on the link wondering how far the Minister had progressed change in the eleven days since I encouraged people to join the disenchanted author brigade.
The short answer - not very far! For those who are curious - here is the link to the media release.
Two aspects of the scheme had changed.
“eligible authors will no longer have to reapply every year to be included in the scheme”.
This is an annual saving of around two minutes per author - four fifths of eff all.
“I am also bringing forward the period in which authors can challenge the number of books they have in libraries.”
Let me take a little time on the second point. The minister has given authors an extra month in which they “can challenge the number of books they have in libraries”. The value of this change (tiny as it is) evaporates when you realise that authors can’t challenge the count - I’ve tried!
In 2021, as I described in the first article, The PLR informed me that I had 49 copies of my book (written under my real name) in public libraries. I counted manually by going into each library website and appealed, here is their reply.
“… do not consider there has been an error in determining the number of copies held in New Zealand libraries. We do not accept author-supplied counts.”
Their logic is - as long as we applied the algorithm correctly there can be no mistake in author counts! Getting an extra month to be rebuffed is the least they could do - literally.
It was a footnote on the media release that I found most dispiriting - “The PLR Advisory Group were consulted on the proposed changes and were supportive of the changes”.
“Futile - incapable of producing any useful result; pointless.”
One bright note
I replied to the Minister stating they had come nowhere near fulfilling my request. Surprisingly, I received a reply only days later.
It was in the second part of the reply that I saw a glimmer of hope - “the amendments are currently being drafted and I expect to advise the Governor General of the changes during the last quarter of the calendar year”.
That’s now! 2025 is next year!!
I won’t hold my breath that the changes will be meaningful but one should live in hope. If they do make meaningful changes, I imagine all the usual suspects will emerge to claim credit for helping the authors of Aotearoa New Zealand. Not that I care, I’ll know!
