Sarkozy to stage G20 meeting about authors' rights

The Bookseller - 21.01.11 - Barbara Casassus

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will stage a G20 meeting about authors' rights on the internet just before the full G20 summit of heads of state and government in Cannes in November.

The idea is "to try and advance together, not one against the other", and to achieve a "civilised" rather than a "regulated internet" he said in a New Year speech to the French culture, teaching and research communities.

It is not possible "to consume more images, music, authors and creation than ever without assuring respect for the property rights" of the creator, he added. The issue goes beyond economics, "because the day creation is no longer remunerated, creation is killed."

Sarkozy (right - Getty) had already said when he met US President Barack Obama in Washington last week that a meeting of the major internet players would be held ahead of the G8 meeting in Deauville in May, and that the subject would be on the political leaders' agenda.
France is head of the G8 and G20 this year as part of the rotating presidency of these groups of countries.

Separately, the French Publishers Association (SNE) may sign up with the anti-internet piracy authority Hadopi, SNE director Christine de Mazières told the web journal Edition Multimedi@. The association will first interview service companies and if it decides to pursue the idea, will apply to the French National Commission on Information Technology and Civil Liberties (CNIL) for authorisation to collect offenders' email addresses.

E-books are forecast to represent 3% of all book sales in France this year.