Are public libraries stealing the livelihoods of Japanese authors? So say writers and publishers as the number of books borrowed climbs while sales of books and magazines steadily decline.
The first salvo in this battle was fired by Bungei Shunju in December 2000, with an article that branded libraries as free rental shops. In June the next year, the Japan Pen Club issued a statement critical of libraries, and last year an authors' association petitioned the Japanese government to establish a European-style public-lending-right system, under which authors would be paid from a national fund for lost royalties from library lending.
The issue has received much attention in the press, which has generally accepted the assertions of authors and publishers at face value. NHK addressed the issue in November on "Close Up Gendai." However, the first occasion at which both sides talked to each other -- or, more accurately, past each other -- about the issue was a public symposium sponsored by the Japan Pen Club in September and reported in the monthly Tsukuru (11/02).