Maureen Duffy – author and campaigner for PLR

Blog series Knowledge Matters

Author Julia Eccleshare, Head of PLR Policy and Engagement

Author, campaigner and activist Maureen Duffy, who has died aged 92, was instrumental not only in fighting for the existence of PLR (Public Lending Right) in the UK but also in shaping how it would work. The first reflects her unquenchable belief in principles that matter while the second showed her equal attention to detail. This ensured that when UK PLR was established in legislation it was a separate right rather than an amendment to the Copyright Act and that the system for the calculation of PLR payments was one that only benefitted authors and other stakeholders rather than libraries, bookshops or publishers as some previous versions of the scheme had proposed.

Neither were easy battles to win but Maureen was already a seasoned campaigner for both animal rights and gay rights by the time she joined the fight for authors rights by becoming one of the founders of the Writers Action Group in 1972. Working closely with Brigid Brophy and others she raised the profile of the fight for PLR turning it from slow moving discussions with arts ministers and the Treasury into a radical and exciting campaign that never took no for an answer. As Michael Holroyd, a former chairman of both the Society of Authors and the Public Lending Right Advisory committee, wrote later: ‘To be with Brigid and Maureen was to live on the barricades. These were dangerous times, for Brigid and Maureen were not afraid, in the interests of the cause, to turn their artillery of abuse on their closest allies if they looked like retreating an inch.’

Maureen’s campaigning for PLR and her search for how the library data could best be collected – a search that included imagining what computers would be able to do for PLR - continued unabated until the passing of the Public Lending Right Act in 1979. One of the highlights which she spoke of often describing it as ‘one of the most frightening moments of my life’ was her appearance at the 1978 Trades Union Congress in Brighton at which she secured endorsement from the delegates for authors right to PLR. Since October 2013, UK PLR has been administered by the British Library, from its offices in Boston Spa, West Yorkshire.

In addition to fighting for PLR and aware that the photocopying of books and articles was expanding fast, Maureen joined others in setting up the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). Interviewed for the 40th anniversary of ALCS Maureen said: ‘I could see that photocopying could be extremely damaging to writers’ incomes and, indeed, to their moral rights as well. So we set about seeing how ALCS could be set up. And we came up with the strapline: No Use Without Payment. Which still applies.’

Maureen’s conviction to campaigning was deep and strong and came from her lifelong interest in politics and what she described as ‘a sort of bloody-mindedness in me that wants to take issues on. It’s a continuous battle. As well as authors’ rights, I’ve also been a campaigner for gay rights and animal rights. I feel very strongly that you have to stand up and play your part.’

Maureen continued to be closely involved with both PLR and ALCS for the rest of her life. In addition to serving as Chairman of ALCS from 1982–1994 and being made its honorary President in 2002 she was the guest of honour at the 40th birthday celebrations of both organisations.

Despite the time and energy she devoted to campaigning for all authors, Maureen was a prolific and highly regarded author in her own right writing novels, poetry, plays and non fiction. She drew on her own childhood experiences for her first novel, That's How It Was (1962) and later took her inspiration for The Microcosm (1966) from her experiences in the lesbian club in London. She was longlisted for the Booker prize in 1998 for Restitution.

Maureen’s lifelong writing was celebrated by the awarding of the Benson Medal from the Royal Society of Literature in 2004 while, most recently, in 2025, she was the inaugural winner of the RSL Pioneer Prize, an award founded by Bernadine Evaristo and presented to a different woman writer aged over 60 every year for 10 years.