Abstract:
At this present time, people tends to exploit literary works, in the category of books, by borrowing from the libraries, due to its free of charge basis. It decisively reduces necessity of book purchasing by end users. Therefore, if the trend of borrowing books through library is increased, a decrease in revenue from selling and/or retailing books will certainly affect the copyright owners and authors. Additionally, lending of the literary works is not the right which is protected under the Copyright Act of B.E. 2537, consequently, the copyright owners or authors are currently not entitled to claim for loss of revenue resulting from lending of literary works. This research is conducted by studying the laws which protects the rights to lend literary works (Public Lending Rights : PLR) and enhance justness to the copyright owners and authors. The researcher has studied and analyzed the character and legitimacy of the Public Lending Rights together with concepts in relation thereto from the laws of other jurisdictions, i.e. European Union, Germany, Australia, and Canada. Furthermore, the researcher has focused on the effects from enhancing protection of the Public Lending Rights in Thailand. The researcher, also, conducted interviews with the relevant parties, i.e. authors, copyright owners, publishers, and librarians in order to suggest suitability of enabling protection of the Public Lending Rights in Thailand. The results of the research indicates that protection of the Public Lending Rights would compensate the losing benefits of the authors, as a result of literary lending through the libraries, and would create incentives for them to create more valuable literary works for public. Consequently, a sui generis law should be enacted to protect the Public Lending Rights in Thailand. The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture should be responsible for the allocation of remuneration to the author of literary works in the categories of academic books, reference books, and novels. The term of protection should remain effective as long as the literary works aforesaid are available for borrowing in the libraries at the amount so specified, 50 copies, for instance.