Queues of people filed into the fairground for Frankfurter Buchmesse 2024 with IPA starting its programme with a meeting of our copyrright committee where IPA members had the opportunity to exchange information on the situations in their countries.
While that was happening, IPA President Karine Pansa was a speaker at the new Kids Conference, in a session called Books without Barriers: Accessibility in Publishing moderated by author Lawrence Schimel speaking alongside Åsa Bergman (ALMA), Carolina Ballester (IBBY). Pansa spoke about IPA’s work on the Sustainable Development Goals, the freedom to publish and copyright.
Chair of the IPA’s Freedom to Publish Committee, Kristenn Einarsson, was on the international stage speaking about the Ljubljana manifesto and the importance of higher level reading.
The 4th Sustainability Summit opened in the afternoon with Dr Christian Ebert, Director of Strategic Marketing and Sales at Frankfurter Buchmesse, kicking things off and UN Publications’ Mary Glenn presenting the results of a survey of SDG Publishers Compact signatories. The session then shifted to focussing on the future and looking at what was being done already in different markets.
The open Freedom to Publish Committee presented the work of the Committee and their experience of developing the Prix Voltaire shortlist. Attendees from the European and International Booksellers Federation and PEN International also shared updates on their work.
The day closed with an expert panel on copyright and AI organised by the Publishers Association, the IPA and the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels. The session featured Silke Von Lewinsky, one of Europe’s top copyright law experts, alongside Scott Zebrak, a US litigator at the forefront of online copyright protection and mass infringement, shaping the law, setting precedent, shutting down illegal services, and achieving settlements.
The session capitalised on the detailed knowledge of the speakers to go deeper into the legal aspects of AI from theoretical and very practical perspectives. The audience was wrapped.
The day closed with a reception for IPA members and friends – a delightful end to a first day at Frankfurt.
