Nothing more important than editing

AAP: "Nothing more important than editing"

15.03.12 | Gayle Feldman - The Bookseller

Libraries, copyright and piracy were officially the big topics of the just-concluded Association of American Publishers (AAP) annual meeting, themed “Copyright & Content: Ownership and Access in a Knowledge Economy.”
New York Public Library president Dr Anthony Marx generated the most drama with a declaration of willingness to throw open the doors of the NYPL for publishers “to explore pilot schemes” in tandem with the library to discover and develop mechanisms for a future where nothing less than “our informed society, democracy, and economy are at stake".
Marx also asserted that he doesn’t believe the library should focus on maximising the free circulation of bestsellers: “I don’t believe in stupid metrics of success.”
Two unofficial topics were on everyone's lips. One was the Department of Justice and the suit it is contemplating against five of the big six and Apple, whom the DoJ accuses of colluding to cause unfair competition by selling e-books via the agency model. The second was Amazon, which many believe should be the real subject of any DoJ investigation.
Publishers involved were adamant that there is no way they can opine individually, let alone collectively, in public that the DoJ has got it backward. They do not see anything changing, at least not until after the next election. They admit, as one executive put it, that in the interim, “things are going to get ugly”. What they would wish for is that authors, unconstrained by DoJ shackles, follow Authors Guild president Scott Turow’s lead and speak out loud and clear, as Turow did several days ago.
Nobody would disagree with AAP president Tom Allen’s general statement about “how hard it is for members of the public to see the contribution made by publishers.”
The problem is that in some respects, publishers have not done a good job of making their case or being proactive.
Full story at The Bookseller