Ministry of Culture Promotes Public Lending Right: NT$18.47 Million Allocated for Phase 2 Compensation

CNA (Reporter Chao Ching-yu, Taipei, 13th) — The Ministry of Culture's Public Lending Right (PLR) initiative has distributed NT$18.47 million in compensation for its second phase (September–December 2025), benefiting over 4,000 authors and 221 publishers. This represents a 30% increase in total payouts and a 100% growth in the number of beneficiaries compared to the NT$14.1 million distributed in the first phase. In a press release issued today, the Ministry of Culture stated that to fulfill national support for creators while balancing the value of knowledge equity in public libraries, it has collaborated with the Ministry of Education and the National Central Library since 2025. This partnership launched the second stage of the PLR pilot program, expanding to over 300 libraries across six special municipalities. The Ministry noted that as the first country in East Asia to implement Public Lending Right, Taiwan significantly adjusted the mechanism for the second pilot phase. Not only was the scope of participating public libraries expanded, but "translators" were also included as eligible recipients. Furthermore, a simplified "single-entry, no annual re-registration" process was adopted. Statistics show that registered titles have officially surpassed 100,000. In the second phase, approximately 200 authors received compensation exceeding NT$10,000, and over 100 authors received more than NT$5,000. On the publishing side, more than 20 publishers earned over NT$100,000. The Ministry explained that the second stage of the pilot program calculates compensation based on physical book lending data from the National Central Library's Big Data Center. It also enhanced data filtering and protection mechanisms to exclude high-volume lending within short periods and abnormal data, ensuring greater fairness in the system's operation. Furthermore, starting May 15 this year, the Ministry and the National Central Library will require new ISBN applications for physical books to first complete "publication confirmation" in the National Central Library's ISBN system. Only after updating and confirming publication information can they register in the PLR system. This initiative aims to improve the quality of the national bibliography and ensure that bibliographic data accurately reflects current publishing market trends, benefiting both the publishing industry and the public library system. Registration for the second stage of the PLR pilot program is open year-round. The next round of compensation will be distributed by the end of September this year. Publishers and authors who have not yet registered are encouraged to do so by August 15 to receive payments on schedule. Additionally, lending counts for first-time registrants will be calculated retroactively from January 2025. (Editor: Wu Su-jou) 20260413