From Publishers Weekly
Publishers Urged to Change the Focus of the Copyright Debate
By Jim Milliot
Publishers are losing the battle over copyright in the court of public opinion, panelists at an AAP session said yesterday, although they disagreed on how publishers-and-authors could change that perception. Author Mark Helprin urged publishers to take a very aggressive to getting the message out about the importance of copyright, saying that whether they know it or not publishers are in a war with technology companies and other parties over the value of copyright. Arguing that the "digital revolution should adjust to copyright" rather than have copyright adjust to technology, Helprin said publishers need to use their megaphone to tout the importance of copyright to publishers and authors to the public. "It's a fight you can win," he said.
Pamela Samuelson, director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology at UC/Berkeley [and School of Information professor], while agreeing that publishers need to do a better job explaining the importance of copyright, disagreed that framing the issue as a war the correct approach, saying that would turn customers into enemies. She said publishers should experiment with pricing and different business models to meet the changing expectations of consumers. People are playing with content in new ways, Samuelson said, and publishers need to find ways to give them the products they can play with. She said publishers need to move away from the idea that they can exercise the same type of control over the content that they have been able to do in the past....