Barcelona libraries paid out 100,000 euros in copyright payments last year
The European legislation on copyright requires libraries to pay a fee of 20 cents per book loan, a sum amounting to approximately 100,000 euros per year for the libraries of the Council of Barcelona, according to Antoni Fogué.
Under European law, municipalities who must pay a management company for copyright, but now the Spanish Federation of Municipalities (FEM) is negotiating an agreement with the Ministry of Culture for it to take over the payments.
"At one time cash payment was made through contributions from the Ministry and the Government", explained the minister of the Barcelona Provincial Council, José Manuel González, this morning at a news conference. He added that "now it is considering a deal for the ministry to make a lump sum transfer for copyright and the CEO's will manage the amount on behalf of municipal libraries.
Currently, the library network of the Barcelona Provincial Council is the largest of Spain: with 194 libraries in 126 municipalities and nine mobile libraries that provide service to 103 towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants, covering 95% of the population of the province of Barcelona. The president of the Provincial de Barcelona, Antoni Fogué, said that there are seventeen municipalities with over 5,000 free public libraries.
According to data presented today by President of the Provincial Council, in 2009 libraries received 17.6 million visitors, up 7.4% over the previous year, an increase that is well above the population increase in the last year.
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