Montreal, November 8, 2024 – On October 3, Sofia, the French organization for the collective management of book authors’ and publishers’ rights, and Copibec, a Quebec company specializing in the collective management of reproduction rights, signed a unilateral agreement for the repayment of lending rights at the IFRRO international congress.

This agreement will enable the payment of unclaimed royalties from previous distributions to Quebec authors, affecting several hundred creators.

As a matter of principle, lending rights are paid directly by Sofia to member authors. For authors who are not members of a French or foreign collective management organization (CMO), royalties are channeled through their publishers.

With this agreement, and in accordance with Sofia’s terms and conditions, it will now be possible to directly remunerate Quebec authors whose works are purchased by French libraries, as long as they are registered in Copibec’s repertoire.

Sofia and Copibec are delighted with this agreement, which makes it possible to directly remunerate Quebec authors for lending their books in libraries, and to develop essential links for the defense of the rights of the written word.

About Sofia
Created in 1999 by the Société des gens de lettres (SGDL) and the Syndicat national de l’édition (SNE), Sofia is the body approved by the French Ministry of Culture for the collective management of library lending rights in France, a remuneration that is shared equally between authors and their publishers. It represents over 12,000 book authors and more than 1,000 publishing brands. According to the IFRRO 2024 survey, it is the collective management organization (CMO) that has signed the most agreements with foreign CMOs in the book sector.

About Copibec
Founded in 1997 by the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ) and the Association nationale des éditeurs de livres (ANEL), the Quebec reproduction rights collective Copibec specializes in copyright management. More than 30,000 authors and over 1,400 publishing houses are represented by Copibec, which also manages legal access to reproductions of works by visual artists through licensing.

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Source
Sofia
la-sofia.org