On May 6, I am a guest on “Follow the Reader”, a weekly Twitter chat that takes place most Fridays between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. eastern time. You can follow the chat, which will be moderated by Charlotte Abbott, using the hashtag #followreader.
Charlotte and I will be talking about the perceived increase in the piracy of digital book content and how I think authors, agents and publishers might view the instance of piracy. The chat is open, and I’ll be taking questions from both Charlotte and (with her help) from other folks following on Twitter.
While getting ready for the chat, I came across a recent article that ran in the National Journal. New(ish) MPAA chairman and CEO Christopher Dodd made his first public remarks in the role, noting that “his organization needs to do a better job of communicating how piracy hurts Americans who make a living from the production of motion pictures”.
In a limited way, I agree with him.
To help make his case, Dodd can start by collecting data that tells the story more accurately than the gross estimates that have been debunked by government entitiescharged with assessing the impact of proposed legislation.
He can also take a look at my open letter to Scott Turow about piracy. There, I argue for a data-driven assessment of not just the instance, but the impact of piracy. That kind of information provides the underpinnings of meaningful legislation (at least, it should).
An additional note: If you are just coming to the table on the discussion about book piracy, the archives on the Magellan blog and this bibliography can provide a bit of a primer (skewed to my point of view, natch).
