Lending Rights

27 March 2023

I want to talk about libraries and the lending rights which compensate authors every time their book is borrowed rather than bought. It's a modest but fair source of income. It was the Whitlam government that introduced lending rights for writers, and it's the Albanese government that is ensuring that the scheme is relevant and modernised. No-one could have anticipated in 1974 that readers nearly 50 years later would be increasingly accessing literature through Kindles and iPads rather than library shelves—although a government could have recognised that in the past decade.

The Albanese government has launched a National Cultural Policy, Revive, that is fit for the future, providing $12.9 million to extend lending rights to include digital content like e-books and audiobooks.

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