PW: IPA Congress Focuses on Rapid Industry Change

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IPA Congress Focuses on Rapid Industry Change
Gordon Graham -- 5/22/00

The main topics at the 26th Congress of the International Publishers Association, held earlier this month in Buenos Aires, were copyright, copyright and copyright. Once a Europe-centered club, the IPA today has been galvanized by the electronic revolution and the globalization of publishing, and is set to play a leading part in mobilizing the book publishing industries of the world in a successful passage of what everyone recognizes will be a profound transition.

Cheerleader in this planned crusade is Pere Vicens of Spain, who took over as president at the end of the Congress from Alain Grund of France, who had been in office since the 1996 Congress in Barcelona. Vicens, who will serve until the 2004 Congress in Berlin, stood for election on a platform that he had circulated to the 70 IPA member associations in July 1999. "The time has come," he wrote in his covering letter, "when we should make the IPA truly global. Because of its origins, at the moment there is a preponderance of Europeans."

The Vicens manifesto comprises seven "Strategic Plans," of which the first--to protect copyright--is so fundamental as to make the other six (promoting better awareness of the publisher's role; freedom to publish; universal access to books; the publisher as the essential intermediary; reforming the IPA's budget; and reforming its organization) quite subsidiary to it.

The Congress program offered eight plenaryand 20 parallel sessions, 150 speakers and simultaneous translation in five languages. Forty-two member associations were represented by the 762 delegates, the largest contingent (133) being from the host nation. The second largest (80), from Spain, reflected that country's historic, linguistic and commercial ties with Latin America. Third came the U.S., with 46 delegates, including Pat Schr der, president and CEO of AAP; about half the U.S. delegates were featured speakers. Notably absent were the top brass of U.S. and other multinational companies. Inconspicuously present was a scattering of lawyers, electronic communications specialists and purveyors of nonprint media. Many of the delegates were heads of family-owned houses, with strong representation from Canada, Scandinavia, Holland, Japan, Germany and Korea. British and French houses were thinly represented.

The STM Group, which can claim to have pioneered global and electronic awareness, was represented from the U.S. by Charles Ellis of John Wiley (an outgoing IPA v-p), Eric Swanson of the same company and Pieter Bolman of Academic Press. Other U.S. participants included Michael E. Wilens, president of the West Group of the Thomson Corporation, who revealed that his company now has more revenue from online publishing than from books, and Jerome S. Rubin, the father of LEXIS/NEXIS, now chairman of the E-Ink Corporation. He and Professor Joseph Jacobson of the MIT Media Lab expect that an all-purpose e-book, into which any text can be loaded, will be available in three years.

Leading the defense of intellectual property rights in the electronic environment was Kathleen Bursley of Harcourt, who chairs the International Publishers Copyright Council. Two Microsoft executives--Steve Stone, director of Software Design, and Horatio Gutierrez, corporate attorney--gave the Congress overviews of technical and legal protection measures.

Dr. Jon A. Baumgarten, a leading copyright lawyer, did not cheer the assembly by recounting how rights are faring in the movie and recording businesses.

What the Congress notably achieved was to bring together disparate and often opposing views in a cordial and positive atmosphere. The fundamental question--are we experiencing a change in the very concept of publishing, or merely the onset of some fancy new formats that will make publishing work better?--remains unanswered, but it benefits mightily from being aired eye-to-eye, ear-to-voice and hand-on-shoulder in a gathering of concerned and thoughtful people.

Graham is editor of the world book journal LOGOS.
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