Who finds the money?
Sir: In her article 'Yes, but who finds the money?' (11 July), Gillian Widdicombe com- ments that the Public Lending Right scheme for authors, though 'all very well in theory', in practice 'would surely benefit only the most popular authors'.
Since payment is not to be based on the number of times each book is borrowed from the library, but on the number of copies each library buys, this is largely un- true. There is a tiny minority of best-selling authors and they, in any case, would find themselves paying much of their library royalties to the Inland Revenue. To devise a scheme that is absolutely perfect in all its details may indeed not be possible, but this can be no reason for continuing to tolerate the injustice of no scheme at all.
Authors do not ask for charity. They want payment for the use of their books. They are not served well by those who freely comment on the proposed scheme without first asking what, in practice, that scheme is. Michael Holroyd 7 St Mary's Grove, Barnes, London swl3
Previous page
