EU rental rights and public lending rights in Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal

Under the terms of EU Directive 92/100/EEC (Articles 1 and 5), authors and other rightholders have an exclusive lending right and the power to authorize or prohibit public lending of their works or other subject matter. The European Commission has found that Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal are incorrectly applying this text by exempting all lending institutions from the obligation to pay rightholders. Luxembourg and France have still not transposed the lending right. On July 13, 2004 t he Commission announced that it has sent reasoned opinions to these States, for failure to implement, or for having incorrectly implemented the Directive. This sending of reasoned opinions constitutes the second step in the infringement proceedings the Commission launched in January 2004. If the six Member States concerned fail to comply with it, the matter might be brought before the European Court of Justice.