Just had the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) Newsletter through, with a very interesting article: First Book Resale Right Initiative Launched
ALCS and Bookbarn International are trialing a system to pay authors for the resale of their work on the second hand market.
“It didn’t feel right that the creators of the goods my business deals in,” says William Pryor [Managing Director of BBI] “should receive no part of the money their books generate when second-hand. The internet has had a significantly positive effect on the second-hand book business and I’m glad if we can share this at a time of significant uncertainty for writers.”
It's an interesting concept. I mean, car manufacturers don't automatically benefit directly from the re-sale of second hand cars, nor do musicians from the sale of second-hand CDs. I'm not entirely sure the system will be easy administratively - I doubt you could roll it out to car boot sales - and many second hand books have fallen into obscurity, belong to defunct publishers, or to authors who have since passed over.
However, I don't reckon there are too many living authors who would complain.
So, as well as Public Lending Right, authors will also have Book Authors Resale Right. It will be interesting to see whether this pushes up the price of a second hand book or lowers the profit for second hand book dealers?
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