Writers and publishers are facing unprecedented intellectual property (IP) challenges from the emergence of the digital age, according to a roundtable organised by the British Library.

In its contribution to the UK Intellectual Property Office’s digital exceptions consultation (which ends 8 April) on taking forward the Gowers Review of intellectual property, the British Library brought together publishers and authors to voice their concerns and views in the debate.

Tracy Chevalier, chair of the Society of Authors and award-winning author, said there was a need for radical suggestions because this was a radical time for publishing and the dissemination of information.

She said authors and writers relied on payment models without thinking too much about them, but digital technologies were a major threat to the current copyright model: “This is like a dam cracking and we are trying to plug the dam. Instead we need a whole new structure.”

Chevalier cited the experience of the music industry, which she described as “going through hell”, and suggested various models for paying authors: from a licence system contributed to by all, to corporate sponsorship or rich patrons.

Simon Juden, chief executive of the Publishers Association, said it was possible to imagine a future where everyone was disintermediated, and writers and readers communicated direct with each other.

He warned that this would overwhelm readers, and that the functions of the publishing industry (such as recommending books, developing commercial facilities, offering advice to writers and readers) would then have to be re-invented.
While acknowledging the challenges publishers face, Juden said that he was “sanguine about the future of the sector”.

He added: “We have to make sure the right rights framework exists. We cannot make it complicated for the user; that would be lunacy.”

Juden said the publishing industry was at a tipping point, with the launch of e-book readers just months away.

Charles Leadbeater, the We-Think blogger and associate of thinktank Demos, said the publishing industry was flailing: “It is grabbing legislative or other devices to prop up an unsustainable position.”

Leadbeater said he had put an early draft of his work online to encourage feedback and criticism, which had improved the finished product.

He added that authors and creators had to concentrate on what was scarce in order to derive value, and that scarce commodity was themselves.

“Entrepreneurship is about exploring different models, not defending existing positions,” he said.

Mike Holderness, freelance science writer and editor of the website Londonfreelance.org, said it was important for culture and democracy that writers could earn a living. He denounced the free-market perception of copyright as a monopoly.

Lynne Brindley, chief executive of the British Library, said her employer was guided by a number of principles in this debate.

Overall, she said, intellectual property law had to be in the public interest, but there had to be balance between the rights of the creator (including the right to be paid) and the need to ensure access for citizens to information and ideas.

Brindley accepted this balance was not easy to achieve and proposed aligning the law to reality.

Rationalisation and simplification was in everyone’s interest, she said, because it made understanding and respecting the law more likely. A complicated law was much more likely to be broken inadvertently, she pointed out, and would fall into disuse or disrepute.

Brindley suggested that copyright law should be informed by advances in technology but that this should be framed in generalities rather than specific technologies, which were always likely to be rendered obsolete by the passage of time.