The copyright wars are set to continue, with the government releasing a Productivity Commission report arguing for a relaxation of intellectual property laws.
If the government decides to remove regional trade protections on the book industry, it should compensate Australian authors. But given how unlikely new funding would be, the best option – for everyone – is to leave well enough alone.
Richard Neville was a man of his times: a smart-alec student in the 60s; a drug-smoking hippie on trial in the 70s; to a family man, writer and public speaker in the 80s and 90s.
Five years ago, the death knell was sounded for the bookshop. But the paper book, which offers hours of deliciously deep, screen-free reading, has not gone the way of Kodachrome. In fact, bookstores are staging a minor comeback.
Experts once thought that young adult literature was doomed. Now it’s got some of the fastest-growing sales in publishing. What changed? Social media might be the key.
Books contain ideas. They enable minds to shine. Our publishing industry is under pressure on many fronts – yet cultural matters seem of little significance to the federal government.
The perception of publishing as a business, even a creative one, means that the question of book sales dominates our conversations about it. But publishing offers far more to our culture than that.
The uniquely Australian literary voice is worth protecting, but parallel importation restrictions are not the way to do it. Rather, we should lift those restrictions – and subsidise Australian booksellers directly.
Our contemporary age may be the first in which parallel importation is undertaken not by booksellers in competition with each other, but by individual consumers in competition with local booksellers.
The Australian government yesterday announced it intends to repeal parallel importation restrictions on books, which has again caused concern in the publishing industry. But, really, what’s the problem?
A study into the responses of Australian authors, publishers and readers to global changes in the contemporary publishing environment suggests authors are being innovative, but financial rewards can be elusive.