Novelist Joanne Harris attacks the "mystique built around being a writer"

Harris attacks writing 'mystique'

09.07.14 | Benedicte Page - The Bookseller

Novelist Joanne Harris has attacked the "mystique built around being a writer" as being one of reasons why people think they can infringe writers' copyright and download their work for free.

Speaking at a debate sponsored by the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) at the House of Commons yesterday (8th July), Harris said: "Authors should go into schools and let them [young people] understand  that we have children and mortgages, and that writing is a real job that real people do."

Harris was debating "A fair deal for authors", alongside poet Wendy Cope, Publishers Association chief executive Richard Mollet and  Richard Hooper, director of the Copyright Hub. The debate marked the launch of research commissioned by the ALCS which found that typical author earnings dropped to £11,000 in 2013.

Introducing the HoC debate, ALCS Board chair Adam Singer revealed that 83% of the 2,454 respondents to the survey were over 45, noting: "A group of under-44s may be making a living from new forms of distribution that don't turn up in surveys."

Cope and Harris both focused on the lack of awareness among copyright infringers using the internet, with Cope saying: "Copyright goes on too long, and it alienates people - 25 years after death is long enough. There is nothing else wrong with the law, but it isn't enforced. My poems are all over the internet and I'm sure it affects 
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