Many European countries, as well as Australia, Canada, Israel, and New Zealand, have adopted legislation that creates a “public lending right” – that is, the government recognizes that enabling hundreds of people to read a single copy of a book provides a public good, but that doing so is likely to reduce sales of the book. The universal public library could be allowed to digitize even works that are in print and in copyright, in exchange for fees paid to the publisher and author based on the number of times the digital version is read.
很多欧洲国家，以及澳大利亚、加拿大、以色列和新西兰，已经通过了承认“公共借阅权”的法案，换句话说，政府认可让成百上千的人阅读书籍符合公共利益，但同时可能影响这本书籍的销售。环球公共图书馆可以对在版和仍有版权限制的书籍进行数字化，并根据数字版的阅读次数向出版商和作者支付费用。