Public lending right: the story so far

IN THE LIGHT of their subsequent close harmony, it is strange to recall that it was an impending royalty dispute between authors and publishers that provoked John Brophy's article, ‘A proposal to increase authors' incomes through the libraries’ in the summer 1951 issue of The author. His premise was simple: the book trade, supporting printers, binders, publishers, book‐sellers and librarians, was conspicuously failing to support more than a small minority of authors upon whom all the others depended.