Authors to stop writing? On what planet?

[Juan]

Fears of Internet piracy could persuade writers to cease creating new works, one group claims. We have our own claim, and it rhymes with full snit.


Ask a working writer what he or she thinks of competitors ditching their works out of piracy concerns, and you’ll likely get a response along the lines of “thank goodness.” In an oversaturated market of writers and writing (just look around the shelves of your favorite bookstore, or even on Amazon.com), the idea of one less person vying for representation and exposure sounds pretty good.

The Times Online suggested some think otherwise:

This is the bleak forecast of the Society of Authors, which represents more than 8,500 professional writers in the UK and believes that the havoc caused to the music business by illegal downloading is beginning to envelop the book trade.

Tracy Chevalier, the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring who also chairs the London-based organization, said that her members were deeply concerned that the publishing industry was failing to adapt to the digital age.

Publications like easily dipped travel and cooking titles look like ones that could be victimized by piracy. A quick camera phone snap of a recipe from a book would make it available to plenty of other people once uploaded.

We’ve seen travel publisher Lonely Planet started offering chapters for purchase from their website, which suggests the company either heard about or perceived sufficient demand for pick and choose chapters that they have chosen to get in ahead of the rush.

Fears of new distribution methods came into being with the advent of other technologies, yet even the presence of the Internet did not keep JK Rowling from vaulting from unemployment to immense wealth. Writers who worry too much about piracy and not enough about their plots won’t ever have to be concerned about having their work published, or re-published by pirates.

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