Australian govt pledges to help protect book biz

16.02.10 | Catherine Neilan in The Bookseller

Australia's government has pledged to help protect Australian publishing industry from "the emerging global threat" of e-books and online buying, newspapers the Age and the Australian are reporting.

The country's innovation minister Kim Carr announced the establishment of the Book Industry Strategy Group at the opening of a symposium for the industry held this week to examine the various challenges presented by the e-book.

Senator Carr, who was "instrumental in rejecting" proposals to change the country's parallel importation laws last year, said the printed book was fast becoming just one platform among many for readers. "You can't build a future on nostalgia . . . Whether we like it or not, the technology is changing," he said. "If we want the Australian book industry to survive, we have to change with it."

But he added that the Book Industry Strategy Group, which has yet to be formed, would not be charged with finding further protectionist mechanisms or the publishing industry. "This is about increasing the industry's innovation and investing in their own future," he said yesterday.

The publishing industry symposium also heard from two British publishers, who detailed their e-publishing ventures.

Richard Charkin, executive director of Bloomsbury Publishing, admitted that even British publishers were not moving fast enough. Stephen Page, chief executive of Faber, urged Australian publishers not to avoid digitisation in the hope that it would protect the product from piracy, claiming the benefits of cheaper, faster and easier distribution outweighed the costs.

Report in The Age.