An advisory panel to Cultural Affairs Agency chief Hayao Kawai issued a report Wednesday calling for the Copyright Law to require book-lending businesses to pay royalties to authors.
The panel's final report proposes that the law be revised to give writers the right to have their books rented out to the public in the same manner as producers of CDs and videos. In line with the report, the agency plans to submit a bill to the Diet to revise the law during the legislative session that starts Monday.
The report says book-lending businesses may dampen book and magazine sales if best sellers and comics are rented out.
The Copyright Law was revised in 1984 to require lenders of music records and movie videos to pay fees to copyright holders. But book-lenders were exempt because such shops used to deal with a small number of volumes and made little profit, the report says.
But the situation is changing as more companies, including Bookoff Corp., which runs a major used-book chain, enter the book-rental market.
As of November, there were reportedly 200 to 250 book-rental shops in Japan.
One such store, Subaru Shoten in Shirai, Chiba Prefecture, rents out 25,000 to 30,000 volumes a month, charging 80 yen to rent a book for three nights.
The panel also called for measures to ban reimports of Japanese CDs sold in other parts of Asia at lower prices, but called for further discussion because such action could affect the reimportation of American and European CDs sold in Asia.