Lima Book Fair

On July 25 WIPO organized a workshop on Managing Copyright in the Publishing Industry in the Digital Age. Held in cooperation with INDECOPI (the Peruvian National Institute for the Protection of Competition and Intellectual Property) and the Peruvian Book Chamber (IPA’s Peruvian member), the event took place during the 23rd International Book Fair in Lima.

The program included speakers from WIPO, Colombia, Mexico and Peru and reviewed the relevant copyright provisions for publishing in the digital age, the management of rights in the digital environment and business models for publishing on the Internet. The workshop was supported by the IPA and provided an opportunity for national and international publishers in Peru to improve their knowledge of digital publishing.

Diego Echeverría from Editorial Ink in Mexico and Jaime Iván Hurtado of Hipertexto in Colombia were contacted through the IPA and gave presentations on the digital opportunities in publishing and the implications for how publishing businesses operate and negotiate. You can read a summary of Diego Echeverría’s presentation here. You can see Jaime Iván Hurtado’s presentation here (both in Spanish).

The workshop also covered the WIPO Marrakesh Treaty, issues of accessibility, and treaty implementation. The following day WIPO organized a roundtable on its Publishers Circle initiative which aims to help develop a viable, globally connected and effective publishing sector in developing countries. The roundtable was a success with several participants signing the Charter of the Publishers Circle and expressing readiness to get involved.

Kuala Lumpur

On 28 August, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, WIPO hosted a national seminar on the implementation of WIPO’s Marrakesh Treaty, in collaboration with MyIPO (Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia). IPA’s Malaysian member, the Malaysian Book Publishers Association (MABOPA), sent their President, Mr Ishak Hamzah to speak. He was supported by IPA Secretary General, José Borghino, who spoke about the IPA’s strong support for the Marrakesh Treaty especially through the Accessible Books Consortium and its Charter for Accessible Publishing.

José said, ‘The WIPO/MyIPO seminar was great to opportunity to explain what we see as the advantages of the commercial availability and remuneration clauses in the Treaty: namely, that they are effective ways of best utilizing the scarce resources available to the visually impaired community, while encouraging local publishers to produce their titles in “born accessible” formats. I was also able to point everyone to our excellent Guide to Marrakesh. What struck me here in KL, was how much everyone was focused on delivering braille versions of books, whereas in European and other markets the discussion is all about EPUB3 and digital. It was a stark reminder of how disparate some markets remain, despite the inexorable trend to globalization.

These meetings are important not only because, through them, IPA is able to concretely support our members and communicate to them our policy positions on often complex issues. But it is also important that we take the opportunity whenever possible to create strong, direct relationships with the Intellectual Property Offices (or their equivalent) in countries where we have members and in other places that are strategically key in global policy debates.