The Public Lending Right (PLR) Commission was created
in 1986.
Brief history of the Public Lending Right program
| 1946 | The world’s first library compensation program is developed in Denmark. |
| 1949 | The Canadian Authors Association starts to discuss the possibility of a Public Lending Right (PLR) program in Canada. |
| 1973 | The Writers’ Union of Canada begins to lobby for a PLR program. |
| 1977 | The Canada Council sets up a committee to examine the creation of a PLR program. |
| 1982 | The Applebaum-Hébert Committee recommends that the government establish a program to provide payment for library use. |
| 1986 | The PLR program is established by a Cabinet decision in March 1986, with an initial budget of $3 million allocated to it by Treasury Board. Canada becomes the 13th country in the world to develop a PLR program. |
| 1988 | The PLR Commission’s Constitution and Bylaws are developed and approved. |
| 1992 | The Status of the Artist Act is passed into law, and includes among its general principles “the importance to artists that they be compensated for the use of their works, including the public lending of them.” |
| 1996 | The PLR Commission and the Canada Council for the Arts sign an administrative agreement to clarify the relationship between the two organizations. |
| 1999 | Canada hosts the 3rd annual PLR International Conference. |
| 2010 | The PLR Commission unanimously adopts a Growth Management Strategy, which means that a payment scale is now used to calculate PLR payments. |
