John Sumsion

First registrar of the system that pays authors when their books are borrowed from public libraries

THE battle for the Public Lending Right was a particularly bitter one, but thanks not least to the parliamentary expertise of Michael Foot and Hugh Jenkins (Lord Jenkins of Putney), it was placed on the statute book in 1979, with many MPs who should have known better trying to sabotage it.

rights management? intellectual property? timely, in an ex-bellum way, obituary in the Times Online March 22, 2003