Lending of an ebook may, under certain conditions, be treated in the same way as the lending of a traditional book, the European Court of Justice ruled today. The highest European Court made its judgement in a case that was started by the Vereniging Openbare Bibliotheken (VOB), an association to which every public library in the Netherlands belongs, against the Stichting Leenrecht, a foundation entrusted with collecting the remuneration due to authors.
The VOB takes the view that the regime for traditional books should also apply to digital lending. Digital books are currently only available to public libraries if they have an agreement with a publisher. For each time an ebook is lend, a fee is paid to the publisher. For older books the libraries pay less than for more recent titles.
The ruling of the Court of Justice makes it possible for libraries to buy an ebook and lend them without requiring a separate contract with the publisher. This could be beneficial to consumers as it could increase the number of e-books available in public libraries.
However, the Court notes that the so-called 'one copy, one user' has to be taken in consideration. If the library purchases one copy of an e-book, it can also lend the ebook to one of its users.
Currently the libraries have contract with publishers that are use a 'one copy, multiple users' principle which allow one ebook to be lend by an infinite number of readers. This has the advantage that ebooks are never temporarily unavailable.
