IPA President, Karine Pansa, kicked off proceedings by delivering a powerful speech in Spanish at the inauguration of this year’s Guadalajara International Book Fair. Pansa spoke about the IPA’s ongoing battles to protect copyright from the attacks of monster platforms and misguided Copywrong NGOs alike. She highlighted the increasing threats to the freedom to publish around the world, and pledged to support the Mexican publishers association (CANIEM) in its legal suit against the Mexican government’s attempt to, in effect, nationalize textbook publishing. The speech was universally praised by local publishers and others, who noted that, on the occasion of the 37th annual book fair, Pansa was the first publisher to be part of the opening ceremony.
Pansa also joined IPA Vice President, Gvantsa Jobava, and Secretary General, José Borghino in signing a new founding document for the IPA Associate Member, the Grupo Iberoamericano de Editores (GIE) which represents all the Hispanic and Portuguese-speaking countries of Central and South America, as well as Spain and Portugal.
Pansa, Jobava and Borghino then participated in a meeting of the LatAm Educational Publishers Forum which farewelled outgoing Chair Eduardo Kruel Rodrigues of Brazil and welcomed his replacement, Ramiro Villalba from Argentina. Recognising the wide-ranging threats to educational publishers in Latin America, Villalba confirmed the continuation of the three working groups initiated by Rodrigues (on Government Policy, Copyright and Digital Transformation).
Finally, Pansa announced the publication of two important surveys: the ‘Global Publishing Industry 2022’ report by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in collaboration with the IPA, and the ‘International Publishing Data 2023’ report by the IPA and Nielsen BookData, which together represent the most comprehensive overview of the international book market available today. Later during the Fair, Borghino moderated a panel, which included Jobava, Andre Breedt of Nielsen BookData and Dimiter Gantchev of WIPO, talking about the importance of book publishing statistics for the continuing development of the industry.