The Guardian view on changes to copyright law: book lovers beware | Editorial

A government proposal to ease restrictions on the sale of imported cultural works risks harming a world-class industryThe hoopla around the release of Sally Rooney’s new novel on Tuesday – with bookshops opening early, and queues of shoppers eager to lay their hands on Beautiful World, Where Are You – has contributed to the image of a publishing industry in rude health. Last year had the highest sales in eight years. Yet authors, bricks-and-mortar bookshops and publishers alike fear that the industry faces a powerful new threat, if cheap editions legitimately produced for an overseas market are allowed to be sold in the UK. Kazuo Ishiguro, Bernardine Evaristo and others have warned that the effect on writers would be devastating.EU regulations meant that UK producers could prevent the importation of such books into Britain; in the wake of Brexit, the government is considering reversing this. A report proposes to change how we deal with the exhaustion of intellectual property rights. The document, from a taskforce headed by Iain Duncan Smith, Theresa Villiers and George Freeman, argues that, apart from limited exceptions, “in general, protectionist use of IP rights should be resisted”. It suggests that we liberalise parallel import laws “to reduce prices and increase choice for consumers” (in notes from a familiar Tory hymn sheet). This would mean that a non-UK publisher, say, that has legitimately bought the rights to publish Harry Potter, could then sell those books back... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2021-09-07 18:00:33 UTC ]
News tagged with: #kazuo ishiguro #bernardine evaristo #limited exceptions #reduce prices #publishing industry

Other Publishing stories related to: 'The Guardian view on changes to copyright law: book lovers beware | Editorial'


The Guardian view on changes to copyright law: book lovers beware | Editorial

A government proposal to ease restrictions on the sale of imported cultural works risks harming a world-class industryThe hoopla around the release of Sally Rooney’s new novel on Tuesday – with bookshops opening early, and queues of shoppers eager to lay their hands on Beautiful World, Where Are... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-09-07 18:00:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #kazuo ishiguro #bernardine evaristo #limited exceptions #reduce prices #publishing industry


The Guardian view on children’s books: a restricted view of a wide world | Editorial

Almost a third of school-age children are from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. But they will still struggle to find characters who resemble themselvesBooks can show us the world both as it is, and as it could be – “mirrors and windows”, as the author Malorie Blackman notes. For... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2018-07-17 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #bame characters #titles featured #bame protagonists #white boys


The Guardian view on US book bans: time to fight back | Editorial

Censorship is surging thanks to an organised rightwing minority targeting books on LGBTQ and Black characters and issues“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door,” warns a character in Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s dystopian vision of an America where books are considered so dangerous they... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-04-13 17:21:33 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #school year #school boards #ron desantis #multiple titles #library association


The Guardian view on the book publishing industry: no one size fits all | Editorial

The failure of a recent bid to merge two large publishing companies shines a light on a central issue of cultural powerDespite a rise in self-publishing, commercial publishers are still the main gatekeepers of what arrives on our bookshelves. As such, they have great cultural and – if a book... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-11-04 18:25:28 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #book takes #planned merger #simon schuster #publishing market #2bn deal #penguin random house #publishing companies #book publishing


The Guardian view on a book glut: to the victor go the spoils? | Editorial

Many publishers are enjoying record sales – but not all. We must take care that those with the biggest names and deepest pockets are not the only beneficiariesAs the weather turns and the days shorten, as trees bend low with fruit and blackberries darken the hedges, bookshops are bracing for a... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-08-23 17:25:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #trade books #guardian view #biggest names #bumper crop #super thursday #50% increase #bookshop


The Guardian view on Amazon’s football coup: beware tech giants bearing gifts | Editorial

The US experience of watching sport online should ring alarm bells for those who prize the Premier League’s ability to bring people togetherIn the late 1960s, the American author and tech seer Richard Brautigan wrote lyrically of “a cybernetic meadow / where mammals and computers / live together... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-12-02 18:49:42 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #premier league #late 1960s #prime service #american author


The Guardian view on free speech online: let law decide the limits | Editorial

The standards by which the internet is controlled need to be open and subject to impartial judiciaries – not left to advertisersThe revelations we publish about how Facebook’s data was used by Cambridge Analytica to subvert the openness of democracy are only the latest examples of a global... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2018-03-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #4bn times #awful lot


The Guardian view on the Murdoch handover: Lachlan inherits a dark legacy | Editorial

Through his businesses, Rupert Murdoch pushed a world view with the pursuit of money at its heartThere are not many chairmanships of companies that would so fascinate writers, and television producers, that they would make four series about them. Rupert Murdoch’s long tenure at Fox and News Corp... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-09-22 17:40:41 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #digital age #elon musk #mark zuckerberg #book publishing #news corp


The Guardian view on Heartstopper: a phenomenon that defines a generation | Editorial

Alice Oseman’s tale of queer romance is a global success story built on fans who want to feel good about themselves in tough timesAfter boy met boy in a crowdfunded graphic novel set in a British grammar school in 2018, hearts began to flutter and tills started to ring around the world. This... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-08-03 17:41:27 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #alice oseman #feel good #tv adaptation #revealing light #graphic novel


The Guardian view on Bloomsbury’s success: publishing wizardry | Editorial

The Harry Potter publisher ascribes its record profits to a hunger for affordable diversion. That’s the magic of booksIn the gloom of a UK economy teetering on the edge of recession, a glittering puff of smoke wafted up last week from the publisher that will for ever be associated with Harry... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2023-06-04 17:25:05 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #record profits #uk sales #cut back #guardian view #jk rowling #boy wizard #nigel newton #ebooks #harry potter


The Guardian view on Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover: the unfulfilled promises pile up | Editorial

The world’s richest man promises more than he has delivered. His social network purchase is likely to go the same wayElon Musk is a fan of the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. When his spacecraft company SpaceX successfully sent its Falcon Heavy rocket payload into orbit around the sun in... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-11-01 18:50:19 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #digital copy #classic work #foundation trilogy #human life #science fiction


The Guardian view on BookTok: a welcome disruptor of the status quo | Editorial

The social media platform is revolutionising bookshops and galvanising publishers. Enjoy it while it lastsThe bestselling book in the UK last week, and of the year so far, is an American novel that was published in 2016. If that sentence sounds implausible, the odds are you have not yet caught... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-09-04 17:25:02 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #guardian view #covid pandemic #colleen hoover #nielsen #bestselling book


The Guardian view on social media’s metaverse: it may remain science fiction | Editorial

The online virtual reality experience that almost every tech giant today wishes to commercially exploit may not catch onIn the 1992 sci-fi dystopia Snow Crash, the author Neal Stephenson imagined a bleak 21st century where the collapse of the global economy had seen governments fall and their... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2022-02-07 19:11:48 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #global economy #wireless internet #gig economy #microsoft announced #mark zuckerberg #virtual worlds #science fiction


World Book Day: Publishers Call for Canada’s Copyright Law To Be Fixed

Denouncing 'systemic exploitation of creators’ and publishers,’ Access Copyright cites more than C$150 million lost in unpaid royalties. The post World Book Day: Publishers Call for Canada’s Copyright Law To Be Fixed appeared first on Publishing Perspectives. Continue reading at Publishing Perspectives

[ Publishing Perspectives | 2021-04-25 22:48:58 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #publishers call #unpaid royalties #world book #copyright law


The Guardian view on the writing business: readers must ultimately benefit | Editorial

People want stories and that means cultivating a publishing ecosystem where big and small can flourishThis week both the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority and the Department of Justice in the US announced investigations into the planned $2.2bn acquisition of the publisher Simon &... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2021-03-28 17:25:47 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #bookseller survey #household names #online shopping #dragged back #bookseller #harpercollins #pan macmillan #bloomsbury #bertelsmann


The Guardian view on lockdown reading: more than escapism | Editorial

It’s no surprise that people read a lot when stuck at home. But novels are more than a way to kill timeIt’s no surprise that keen readers have looked to books for historical analogues or literary insights into the coronavirus outbreak. Sales of the English translation of Albert Camus’s 1947... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-04-19 17:25:44 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #albert camus #recent weeks #don delillo #lucy hughes-hallett #lockdown began #libraries


The Guardian view on new stories: helping others tell tales | Editorial

Everyone’s favourite stormtrooper will be developing new movies with Netflix – one of several creators who have turned to enabling the work of othersToni Morrison knew a thing or two about stories. In 1994 she saw the “political correctness debate” as being about “the power to be able to define.... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2020-03-15 18:32:03 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #guardian view #production company #recent announcement #record label #under-represented communities #literary agency #penguin random house


The Guardian view on arts prizes: a 20th-century phenomenon? | Editorial

This year’s Booker and Turner prizes tell us artists and even judges are repudiating the winner-takes-all award. It may be time to find new ways to celebrate the artsThe past year has been a curious one for cultural prizes. The Booker, when the judges failed to agree on a single winner, ended up... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-12-15 18:25:01 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #guardian view #put forward #dating back


NZ considers changes to copyright law as part of promise to help end global 'book famine'

An estimated 90% of all written works worldwide are not available in accessible formats. New Zealand is implementing the Marrakesh Treaty to help change that. Continue reading at The Conversation

[ The Conversation | 2019-07-23 20:01:52 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #marrakesh treaty #copyright law


The Guardian view on Facebook: power without responsibility | Editorial

Social media cannot ensure they only publish truths. But what about deliberate falsehoods designed to damage?Are social media companies responsible for the lies their users tell? Both the obvious answers, “yes” and “no”, are clearly wrong. Complete responsibility is a bad idea, and impossible in... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2019-05-27 17:25:07 UTC ]
More news stories like this | News stories tagged with: #conspiracy theories #alex jones